


Hollowed Whole

by Pangea



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bleach fusion, Disjointed Timeline Narrative, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:15:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pangea/pseuds/Pangea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles Xavier has held his post as Captain of the Fifth Division for three centuries now, making him the longest-standing Captain of the Gotei 13 besides the Captain Commander himself.</p><p>He shouldn't be the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One-Sided Sympathy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [groovyphilia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/groovyphilia/gifts), [ikeracity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikeracity/gifts).



> For my boo **Charlie** , since we shout at each other on an extremely regular basis about fic ideas and generally act as bad influences. I mean enablers. Or something. :')
> 
> I originally considered this as an idea for the Big Bang and even though I wound up settling on something else, this fic was still fighting to come out and after rambling about it to **Charlie** , I decided to go for it. As a warning this fic is probably a little rough on the emotions at first but I promise that it _will_ get better! Stick with me, this one has a happy ending. For real. Charles/Erik is endgame, I promise. In the meantime, do mind the tags as we go.
> 
> Thanks also to all the lovely people of the chatango chat!
> 
> Chapter title casually lifted from chapter 24 of Tite Kubo's _Bleach_.

“Do not seek beauty in battle,” Charles says as he opens the door of the lecture hall, pitching his voice loud enough to carry through the whole room.  An immediate hush falls across the murmuring students, their attention settling on him.  “Do not seek virtue in death.  Do not make the mistake of considering only your own life.”

It’s dead quiet in the room now, the soft _tak tak tak_ of his sandals on the hardwood floor the only audible sound.  He crosses the front of the room slowly, arms folded neatly behind his back, gaze drifting over the students.  Young and eager.  Young and eager and desperate to prove themselves.

“If you wish to protect that which you _must_ protect…”  Charles comes to a stop in the center of the front of the hall, letting the silence hang heavily in the air.  His own words hang heavily in his heart.  “Slice the enemy you must defeat from behind.”

The students shift in their seats, murmurs rippling through the crowd as the last echoes of his voice fade.  Charles gives them a faint smile, turning on his heels to face them fully.

“These are the commandments that will be drilled into you during your training here,” he continues calmly, the words coming automatically now after so many long years.  “But I am here to tell you that if you apply yourselves to your studies, and work hard in your training, there will be no need for that last one.  You’ll be able to fight your enemy head-on, and achieve honorable victory.”

That draws a few smiles and a couple short laughs, as it always does, and which Charles encourages with another faint smile.  It’s not a particularly funny joke, but it’s one he likes to make every year regardless.  He can only hope that by the time they graduate, some of them will still remember it.

“My name is Charles Xavier, Captain of the Fifth Division of the Gotei 13.  Welcome to the Academy.”  He sweeps his gaze out across the room again, making eye contact here and there.  This seems like a solid bunch.  They’ll do well.  “Before I turn you back over to your teacher, I want to remind you all that the work and effort you put in here will most certainly set the groundwork for your future as a Shinigami.  Death god.  Soul reaper.  We have many names.  But we all serve one purpose.

“Some of you will join the Gotei 13, and be assigned to one of our thirteen divisions.  One or two of you may achieve the rank of Vice-Captain or even Captain.  Still others will join the Kido Corps or the Onmitsukido—the Stealth Force, for those of you unfamiliar with its traditional name,” he adds wryly, drawing a few sheepish chuckles from the ranks.  “And some of you will drop out.”

Smiles fade.  Everyone sits up a little straighter.  Charles would be able to hear a pin hit the floor, were he so inclined to drop one.  The room is an interesting mix of spirit pressures.  Some of them he can feel, pressed against his skin like a blanket, ramped up with tension and the lack of control that they will all learn soon enough.  It’s a bit like standing in a fluctuating pressurechamber, the different spirit powers grating on his senses.

Charles takes a breath.  He hates this part.  “The most important thing I can tell you today, however, is to form bonds.  Strengthen them.  Treasure them.  Everyone in this room is your brothers and sisters in arms.  You will fight side-by-side together for the rest of your lives.  Bonds are important.  They’re something that we should all fight to protect.”

The silence is thoughtful now.  They don’t quite understand him fully yet, but Charles knows that in time, they will.  He hadn’t understood the exact same words when they’d been spoken to him, well over three centuries ago.  He hadn’t understood them at all until it’d been far too late.

Steady, he thinks to himself when his hands threaten to tremble.  Fortunately they’re still behind his back so none of the students see when he clenches his fists tightly.

When he’s sure that his voice is no longer in danger of being anything other than steady, he continues.  “Work hard.  Do your best.  I look forward to seeing you all again in six years upon your graduation.”  He offers them one last faint smile.  “Good luck.”

He uses flash step to reach the door of the lecture hall, opening the door and slipping out of the room before any of them think to look back.  It always serves as a dramatic exit—he hears a brief upwelling of noise as the door shuts behind him, mostly small exclamations of surprise.

“Well spoken as always, Captain Xavier.”  Captain Jean Grey of the Ninth Division stands a little ways down the hall, surveying him with her piercing eyes.  Her red hair is bright against her white Captain’s overcoat.  She’s always reminded him of a tiger coiled and waiting, ready to attack at a moment’s notice and turn pent up energy into a maelstrom of unbridled violence.

“Hello Jean,” he greets her, giving her a polite nod.  They’re not particularly close friends, as the Ninth and Fifth don’t mix very often, but he respects her as a colleague and they get along well enough.

“Charles.”  Jean falls into step beside him, fluid and graceful.  Her spirit pressure is carefully tucked away like his own but it still prickles on the edges of his senses, deep and powerful.

Or maybe it only prickles because of him.  _He’s_ probably the prickly one, hackles raised in defense, mostly because he knows what she’s thinking.  What she’s trying to work out to say, how to pick her words so that she doesn’t sound pitying.  Charles resists the urge to close his eyes as they walk.  He really wishes that she just _wouldn’t_.

“You always know what to say,” Jean says, taking him by surprise.  She sounds thoughtful.  The prickly itch of her spirit pressure lessens somewhat.  “You’re very good at it, Charles.  You know how to motivate the first years, the sixth years, the Gotei 13—everyone.”

Charles’ mouth twists.  “I have a lot of experience.”  He means for the words to come out neutrally but instead he just sounds tired, even to his own ears.  He’s carried weariness in his bones for a long time now and it drags on him, filling up the spaces between his ligaments and tendons and leaking in past his cartilage and replacing marrow as it weighs him down.  There is no escaping the constant reminder.

“I know,” she says quietly, her voice even.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Charles shoots her a warning look as they step out the front doors of the main building of the Academy, into the wide courtyard flanked on either side by different wings of the school.

Jean chooses to ignore him.  “The Captain Commander wouldn’t ask you to stay on if he didn’t feel you were still capable, Charles.”

The prickly feeling is smoldering in his gut now, hot and sharp.  He feels uncomfortable in his own skin and Jean picks up on the spark in his spirit pressure, glancing over at him.  Charles tamps down on his power, smoothing his expression into a blank look.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” he says tonelessly, “I’d rather not do this, Captain Grey.”

She’s startled into blinking, her serene façade slipping for a moment.  “Of course.  I didn’t mean to—”

“I have a few matters of business to attend to,” Charles says, and at least he can still make his tone polite.  He gives her a nod.  “Good day.”

He takes off before she can answer, flash stepping to slip out of sight.  He bounds up onto the roof of the nearest building, his footfalls light against the tiles as he crosses the Seireitei, headed back towards the Fifth Division barracks.  Fortunately Jean doesn’t try to give chase.

That’s the problem, Charles thinks as he leaps from rooftop to rooftop, fists still tightly clenched, when you’re the local example of tragedy.  He doesn’t want to be handled like glass everywhere he goes but it’s inevitable, even after 200 years.

Even though, privately, he still feels as if he’s made of glass, liable to shatter in an instant.

 

X

 

The afternoon sun is warm on his skin where it dapples down through the branches and while the breeze is light, it’s just cool enough to feel soothing as it ruffles his hair, making the leaves overhead whisper frantically for a moment before dying down.  Charles turns a page of his book, shifting where he leans back against the wide tree trunk.  It’s quiet here on the outskirts of the Seireitei, one of his favorite places to come to.

“There you are.”  A disturbance in the air, a dip in the resonance of the spirit particles that make up the world around him, and suddenly Charles is no longer alone.  “Studying on our day off, Charles?  I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

Charles marks his place with one finger, a small grin quirking at the corners of his lips.  “Maybe if you followed my example,” he says teasingly as he tilts his head back, blinking for a moment in the face of the sun through the branches, “you’d do better on your exams.”

A snort.  “I can outscore you in Zanjutsu any day.”

“Certainly your skill with a sword is to be feared,” Charles acknowledges with a smile, “but how is your Kido, again, Erik?”

Erik makes a face, muttering something under his breath as he steps further into the shade of the tree.  Charles has to tilt his head back a little further to compensate, grinning up at him even as Erik scowls back.

“Don’t make that face, my friend,” he says with a laugh, “it’s our day off!  Come sit with me.”  He pats the ground invitingly.

“Move over,” Erik commands, picking his way over a thick, exposed root.  Charles obliges, scooting over so that there’s room enough for Erik to sink down beside him, their shoulders pressed together as Erik leans back against the trunk as well.  “You call this comfortable?”

“Very,” Charles assures him, giving him a nudge as they settle into place.  He opens his book again as another breeze rifles through the leaves overhead.

Erik makes a small, unconvinced sound but his eyes are closed, body slowly relaxing next to Charles’.  Charles smiles to himself and leaves Erik be, reabsorbed bit by bit back into his book as the clouds drift by overhead.  The Academy doesn’t give very many days off, so this is—

“This is nice,” Erik mumbles as he stretches, his spine a long, graceful curve beneath his white uniform kosode, before he drops one arm down behind Charles’ shoulders lazily.

“It is,” Charles agrees, and means it.  Like a cat stretched in a patch of sunlight, full on cream, he is the definition of content.  He’s in his favorite place with his favorite person and an admittedly good book.  The sun is shining.  It’s the sort of feeling that anyone could idly wish for it to last forever, he thinks, and he can’t deny that he feels the same.

“I can sense you having feelings about this from here,” Erik says, dry as dust.

“Well you _are_ close,” Charles points out, but he’s smiling again.

Erik makes a sound that is usually accompanied by the roll of his eyes.  “Read to me.  And then later we’ll practice Kido.”

Charles chuckles.  “You’re in luck, this is an incantation book.”

“Ah,” Erik answers with the same level of enthusiasm Charles usually reserves for sparring, “poetry.”

“Listen,” Charles chides, elbowing him, and then begins to read aloud, his voice flowing with the words on the breeze and Erik settles further against him, much like an overgrown cat himself, and later Charles will despair as the details of the day slowly fade from memory with the long passage of time.

 

X

 

“I thought about you today,” Charles murmurs idly as he unfolds himself from his knelt position behind his low desk, rising up off the cushions fluidly despite the stiffness he feels from sitting far too long.  Sean must have come through earlier—Charles thinks he can faintly remember distantly registering his Vice-Captain’s spirit pressure at some point—because the candles are lit, their flickering light softly illuminating the empty office.

Charles crosses the room slowly, putting them out one by one.  He’s done enough paperwork for today.  He has a habit of getting into the zone, lost to the world as his focus narrows down.  It helps keep his mind off of other things, at least for awhile.  It’s inevitable where his thoughts always end up.

“I suppose that isn’t news,” he muses, extinguishing the last candle and pitching his office into darkness.  He stands still patiently, waiting for his eyes to adjust.  “I’m always thinking of you.”

Moonlight falls in slanted beams across the floor, becoming brighter when Charles slides the screen door all the way open.  The night sky is clear and cloudless, the moon full and round.  The Fifth Division barracks are quiet tonight, and he can’t sense anyone else about other than the usual two sets of sentries on night watch.  Summer is slowly fading into fall so while the days are still hot the night air is beginning to grow crisp, and Charles shivers lightly as he steps out onto the elevated walkway of the barracks, sliding the door to his office shut.

“The new batch of first years all look promising,” Charles says, barely above a whisper as he walks.  His pace is slow and sedate; he’s not in a hurry.  No one is waiting for him.  “You’d disagree.  You’d say that that the Academy’s standards have dropped since we were students.”  He can’t stop the smile that flickers across his face, there and gone.  “And meanwhile you’d already be picking out your favorites for your division.”

His personal quarters are on the other end of the barracks in the east wing but he doesn’t feel like retiring quite yet.  He’s gotten better at sleeping, over the years, but he still finds that it’s just not something he needs very much of anymore.  There’s a garden on the western side of the sprawling complex so Charles heads there instead, stepping lightly and gliding like a shadow between patches of moonlight.

“I was angry, earlier,” he admits softly.  “I should apologize to Jean.  She’s been of support more often than not.  It grates after awhile, though.  I’m sure you’d understand.  You knew all my moods.”

The garden is a small affair, tucked neatly between two buildings in a small sort of alcove.  There’s plenty of greenery, lush even at night, and a small fountain bubbles quietly over smooth stones.  Charles steps off the path onto the grass, soft underfoot.  He brushes past a gnarly bush, ducking beneath a large fern.  There’s a tree in the center of the garden, small but sturdy, its twiggy branches standing out in stark contrast to the moon overhead.

Charles stops and stands still for a moment, breathing.  He keeps his spirit pressure tightly compact these days, packed deep down inside himself but now he lets it unfurl, stretching out tentatively.  His edges are still loose and frayed, old scars that will never fade.  Anna Marie has offered more times than Charles can count to take a look at him, to see if any repair can be made to his damaged spirit pressure, but he refuses every time.  It’ll heal on its own or not at all.

“Would you call me stubborn?” Charles asks.  He carefully withdraws his power back into himself, folding it down to where the instability won’t register in anyone’s awareness.  There are plenty of rumors afloat about him within the Gotei 13, but he’s long since learned to shrug them off like water.  The list of people who know the truth of the matter is very, very short.  “Or would you be just as maudlin as me, old friend?”

Charles sinks down at the base of the tree, leaning back against the trunk.  His white overcoat will probably get stained, but that hardly matters.  He tips his head back against the rough bark, closing his eyes—not to sleep, but to remember.

“I miss you,” he breathes, the soft confession more of a weary sigh, and it’s just as well that there is no one there to hear him.

 

X

 

“And that,” Armando says cheerfully as he sends another first year flying, “is why you must always think on your feet.  Read the situation.  Adapt to the scenario.  Hollows are predictable at best but _un_ predictable at worst.  They can take even seasoned veterans by surprise.”

“How is this supposed to help us?” one of them snaps, glaring at him with the frustration that can only be brought from being six months into one’s first year at the Academy with little progress to show.  The first year is always the most brutal—it has a certain way of bringing to light all of one’s shortcomings all at once.  It’s supposed to.  If you can survive your first year at the Academy, Armando thinks, you can nearly survive anything.  “You’re the Eleventh Division Captain.  You’re known for being _invincible_.  You’re just beating us up.”

Armando smiles wryly.  It’s refreshing, being addressed so bluntly by someone other than his Vice-Captain.  “For one, it doesn’t hurt to teach all you hotheads a little humility.  You’re not in the Gotei 13 yet.”  There are a few downwards glances at that, and lots of shuffling feet.  He tries not to laugh.  “For another, _all_ of your enemies are going to seem invincible at first—until you figure out their weakness.  Everyone’s got them.”

“Even you?” asks the first year he’d thrown.  She’s a spry little thing, wiping her mouth with one arm as she rises.

“Even me.”  He grins.  “Though mine is a bit harder to reach than most, I will admit.  That’s why I volunteer to come in and give you guys something to hit besides practice stakes and each other.  What’s a Hollow’s biggest weakness?”

“Its mask,” she answers at once.  “Everyone knows that.”

Armando nods.  “That includes the Hollow.  It isn’t going to let you get so close very easily.  That’s why you’ve got to learn to get creative.”

That’s when he sees it, a tiny flicker of black in the corner of his eye over the heads of the rest of the students gathered.  He straightens from his ready stance, letting the wooden practice sword in his hand dip down as he lifts his free arm.  The Hell Butterfly flutters over to land delicately on one of his fingers, wings opening and closing in time as it relays its message.  It’s serious if they’ve sent a butterfly rather than a messenger.

“It looks like we’re going to have to cut this short for the day,” he announces absently, flicking his fingers once so that the Hell Butterfly flutters off, his thoughts already removed entirely from the lesson.

A mandatory Captain’s meeting, all Captains required to be present.  He can barely remember the last time the Commander demanded all of them to be there—usually everyone is too spread out to bother.  He breaks into flash step, dropping the practice sword and leaving the practice yard behind in the blink of an eye as he runs too fast for the average eye to follow, bounding up onto the rooftops so he can cross the Seireitei more easily.  Something must be up.

“Alex.”

There’s a dip in spirit pressure and then his Vice-Captain runs alongside him, only a step or two behind.  “What the fuck, ’Mando.”

Armando huffs out a brief laugh.  “I take it this isn’t about the butterfly.”

“Well—what the fuck about that too,” Alex says, “but seriously.  You shouldn’t have let that brat talk to you like that.  You’re a Captain, he’s a _flea_.”

“He’ll learn his place in the hierarchy of things,” Armando answers.  “I don’t volunteer at the Academy to impress my rank upon them.  I’d rather that they actually learned something.”

Alex snorts.  “Then hit them harder.  You’re a _Captain_ , they should _know_ —”

“They’ve called a meeting,” Armando interrupts him, “that’s what the butterfly was for.”

Alex is silent for three steps, the amount of which takes them clear across the Seventh Division’s district.  “Not good,” he says eventually.  Armando still feels his spirit pressure spike, though whether it’s in anxiety or anticipation is hard to tell.

“Might not be bad, either,” Armando says calmly.  “Either way, be ready.”

Alex snorts.  “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I prefer to,” Armando says lightly, reaching back without looking to briefly brush his fingers against Alex’s wrist.  “See you soon.”

“Sir,” Alex agrees, but the word is charged, crackling between them and holding more meaning than a mere honorific.  Armando’s lips curl in a smile and then Alex is gone, changing direction abruptly as he heads back towards the Eleventh Division district.  No one ever put much faith in Alex as a member of the Gotei 13, back when he was still young and his vast spirit pressure was a loose cannon, wild and uncontrollable.  When Armando had selected him as his Vice-Captain no one had been more surprised than Alex himself.  He’s come a long way.  Armando would have no one else, for more reasons than one.

Captain’s meetings take place at the First Division’s headquarters, where the Captain Commander holds office.  The building is more towards the center of the winding, circular layout of the Seireitei so it doesn’t take Armando long to reach his destination, coming to a stop directly in front of the long pathway leading up to the building.  Unlike the other division’s headquarters, which more closely resemble barracks, the First Division’s is wide and towering, as befits the head of the chain of command.  Armando finds that he isn’t the only one currently looking up at the building.

“Captain Xavier.” Armando greets his fellow, moving up as to where he’s more in the other Captain’s line of sight rather than lurking behind him.  While it’s standard for Captains to rarely cross paths given their duties as well as the enormity of the Seireitei, Armando can still only count on one hand the number of times he’s met Xavier.

Xavier blinks once, drawn out of thought.  “Captain Muñoz,” he says with a slight nod, polite enough but certainly not welcoming.

“Have any idea what this is about?” Armando asks, casually undeterred.  Alex likes to say that he could hold a pleasant conversation with a Hollow, which may be a slight exaggeration, but it’s within Armando’s nature to be friendly.  He’s heard that Xavier used to be the same way before—well.  Armando had still been in the Academy at the time, so he’s not overly familiar with the details.

“Not the faintest,” Xavier responds.  In unspoken agreement they fall into step with each other as they start towards headquarters, though they keep about five feet of distance between them.  Xavier moves like a shadow, just there on the edge of Armando’s periphery, fluid and poised but not all there .

“Been quiet, lately,” Armando says lightly as they approach the building.  “Maybe the Commander just wants a check-in.”

“He’d call us individually if that were the case,” Xavier says tonelessly.

Armando shrugs, smiling despite himself.  “Maybe he’s gotten lazy.”

Xavier comes back a little at that, glancing at him sharply, a flash of blue that is there and gone.  His eyes are cloudy at first look, distant and aloof, but beyond that they are piercing, terrible with directness.  Armando’s spirit pressure is nothing to laugh at and he is comfortably confident in his abilities but Xavier flays him with that single look, unintentionally or not.

The worst part, Armando thinks as he gives himself a mental shake, rolling his shoulders once, is that he isn’t sure what that look _actually_ means.  Xavier is a wolf, injured and wary for it, prowling on just this side of tame.  Armando might not be overly familiar with the details of what happened two centuries ago, but he knows enough.

“Pity they’re not holding the meeting outdoors,” he says when it’s clear Xavier isn’t going to say anything in response, “it is lovely out today.”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Xavier let out a silent sigh, the previously tense lines of his body loosening somewhat.  “The Commander has never been one for simple pleasures,” he says lightly, and Armando has to stop himself from smiling.  It’s the small victories in life.  “He’s more of a get-down-to-business type.”

“Too true,” Armando agrees easily.  “I suppose work has to get done somehow.”

The corners of Xavier’s lips quirk up for the briefest of moments as they enter headquarters.  It’s fitting—a ghost of a smile to match the ghost of the past he carries around with him.  If Armando looks closely he can see the cracks.  “Indeed it does.  I hope the council doesn’t last long for the sake of my own work that needs to get done.”

“It would be nice to get back to throwing first-year Academy students around.”

Xavier glances at him again, so swiftly that Armando nearly misses it, but this time there’s a different kind of spark there.  “I hear they’re quite lively this year.”

“There are a few upstarts,” Armando answers with a wry smile, “but every year has them.  I was one myself, if I’m honest.”  He lets out a short laugh.  “I was probably the biggest of my year.”

“I as well,” Xavier says quietly, startling him, but Armando has enough presence of mind to keep his gaze casually forward.  They entrance hall of the First Division’s headquarters is long, with thick columns lining the walls and a high, vaulted ceiling.  “Though not the biggest.”

“We certainly mellowed out just fine,” Armando says even though he can tell he’s lost Xavier completely, the other man’s thoughts a million leagues away now.  This is probably the point where people mistakenly start to push, and pry further than they should, which would account for why Xavier stays so guarded.  It’s hard for deep wounds to heal when they’re constantly reopened by people who only want to look as far as the surface.

Xavier doesn’t answer, not that Armando was expecting one.  They’ve reached the end of the hall, standing in front of tall double doors that lead into the central council chamber.  Xavier is tense again as he resurfaces from thought, his body a spring trap ready to snap shut.  Armando can practically see the wolf’s hackles rising; lips curling back to reveal sharp, white fangs.

He could offer words of consolidation.  He’s practiced enough with Alex, he knows how and what to say.  But the fact of the matter remains that it simply is not his place.  It’s none of his business.  He can respect that much.

“Let’s see what this is about, shall we?” Armando says instead, reaching forward to push the doors open.  They swing forward noiselessly on well-oiled hinges and Armando inclines his head once.  Xavier is technically his senior after all, having been a Captain for far longer.  “After you, Captain.”

 

X

 

“This is bullshit!” Charles exclaims even as he slashes diagonally across one Hollow’s face, stopping the monster in its tracks as it bursts into nothing.  He whirls around just in time to catch another, vanquishing it before it can even open its jaws.

“Never thought I’d hear you say that,” Erik admits with a laugh, leaping past him to deal two ending blows at once in a deadly whirl of flashing metal.  He comes to a stop, twirling his sword, and in the face of his grin Charles can’t even scowl.  “Damn, they just keep coming, don’t they?”

Charles pants, looking past him at the hoards of Hollows materializing all across the sky with a chorus of unearthly howls.  Below them the human city goes about its business, unaware of the multitude of spirits overhead.  Humans have never been very good at seeing.  “There’s too many!  There’s no way they meant for this to happen during our training exercise!”

“Come on, Charles,” Erik says, still wearing his brash grin, “these are just little guys.  We can take them.  It’ll be fine.”

“The last time you told me that _it’d be fine_ we wound up hungover for a full 48 hours,” Charles retorts, even as he shifts his grip on his sword.  Erik’s right, all of the Hollows so far are small, but that’s beside the point.  There are only two of them verses at least thirty.

“That and this are two completely unrelated events,” Erik laughs again, eyes glinting from the glow of the city below.  His profile is stark against the dark sky, his sword an extension of his strong, limber arm; the rest of his body all long, hard lines that taper into elegance at his trim waist, hidden for now beneath the Academy uniform’s resolutely baggy waistline though Charles knows better.  He’s spent a great deal of time tracing those lines, committing them to memory.

Just looking at him has Charles’ heart crawling right up into his throat to beat there wildly, trapped like a fluttering bird in a cage, and if it weren’t for the fact that they’re currently vastly outnumbered in the middle of a fight Charles would be floored with the sudden, overwhelming love he has for this single cocky, frustrating, wonderful man, who looks back at him with what has to be an expression that mirrors Charles’ own.

“I’ll race you,” Erik offers, lifting an eyebrow in just the way he knows to drive Charles mad, “whoever gets the highest count wins.”

“And what will I win?” Charles asks with an impish grin, crossing the distance of sky between them and turning to put Erik at his back so that they face off against the Hollows together.  Erik’s right.  They can take the Hollows out easily.  They’ll probably even get the highest score in their class on the exercise, keeping them at the forefront of the pack.  It’s what Erik wants, it’s what Charles wants, and someone has to protect all the human souls down below.

It doesn’t mean that they can’t have a little fun in the process, he supposes.

“ _I_ will win,” Erik replies over his shoulder and Charles can feel his smirk, set into his words, “and the winner determines the prize.”

Charles has just enough time to snort and then the first of the Hollows are on them and the rest becomes a blur of steel and teeth, a deadly dance of Soul Reaper and Hollow that has no doubt been played out many times before.  Their victory is assured and comes swiftly, both of them exchanging smiles as sharp as their blades in bits and snatches of the fray, when time seems to slow down during a mere shared look.

Charles is never certain who actually wins that day because later after the dust settles and all the Hollows have been purified, after they’ve returned back home to Soul Society and the Seireitei and have turned in their report to their expectant instructors, Erik spreads him out across his simple mattress and takes him apart particle by particle, opening him up with fingers and tongue and then fucks him so slowly that Charles thinks his heart might beat right out of his chest by the time he comes apart.  Their spirit pressures resonate to the same frequency as they pant into each other’s mouths, a rising crescendo in a symphony that is all of Chares and all of Erik that they have poured into one another, keeping each other whole.


	2. Goodbye, Halcyon Days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely **AliceDuIkana** has drawn Fifth Division Captain Charles Xavier [here](http://aliceduikana.tumblr.com/post/43704580568/for-pan-from-her-fic-hollowed-whole-wanted-to) in perfect _Bleach_ -anime style!
> 
> WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER include graphic depictions of violence and gore, as well as **major character death**. Proceed with caution. Reminder, however, that Charles/Erik is still my endgame plan no matter what. Trust me!
> 
> Chapter title casually lifted from chapter 237 of Tite Kubo's _Bleach_.

The central council chamber is a wide, empty space furnished only by a single plain, high-backed chair at the center of the back of the room, conspicuously empty for now.  Charles can see his own reflection in the polished wood floor as he and Armando cross the short distance to their colleagues, footsteps echoing softly off the high, vaulted ceiling.

Nearly everyone else has already arrived, standing in their proper positions as they wait for the Captain Commander to enter.  As is tradition, the Captains form two straight lines facing one another on either side of an invisible pathway leading up to the Commander’s chair, standing in numerical order by Division; even numbers on the left and odd numbers on the right.  Armando steps over to stand between the Thirteenth and Ninth Division Captains, leaving Charles to continue up the line, taking his place between the Third and Seventh.

With this many Captains in one room Charles is practically breathing reiatsu—spirit pressure made tangible, which is practically unavoidable in this case.  His own flutters beneath his skin, rippling in the aftershock of so much condensed power unintentionally clashing; a lesser spirit of normal power would be crushed, ground down to particles in the face of the relentless onslaught.  Captain-levels are not meant to be contained all in one place, even with all of them trying to tone it down.  It doesn’t help that while none of them are nervous, there’s still an overall wary tension that hangs over the room.

Charles adjusts, his own reiatsu stabilizing out.  He’s on par with them all, so he has no trouble withstanding the rest of their spirit pressures.

“Good to see you, Charles.” Anna Marie’s gentle southern drawl, which she’s never quite lost through the centuries, floats lightly across to him from where she stands directly opposite of him.  The Fourth Division Captain has her arms folded serenely into her sleeves, her long hair pinned up and back out of her face.  Out of everyone in the room she appears the most at ease, but she is always calm and unruffled, be it in the face of the busy hospital or her mouthy Vice-Captain.

“You as well,” he offers her in greeting, and it’s only half a lie at worst.  Out of all the rest of the Captains she alone is perhaps the only one he’d prefer to speak with, if at all.

He’s being unfair, he realizes.  He doesn’t know Armando very well but the Eleventh Division Captain had been perfectly courteous.  Not everyone is out to question you, Xavier, he tells himself, it’s been 200 years and the other Captains know enough to be over it; all curiosities satisfied.  Move _on_.

He can’t, though.  Never, never, never.

“Any idea what this is about?” Anna Marie asks him.  She definitely knows what’s going on in his head, but it’s different from her.  She’s a healer.  She’s going to look at him only clinically no matter what.  Sometimes it’s a relief.

“No,” Charles answers her honestly.  He asked Sean before he’d left the Fifth Division if there were any kind of rumors about anything being spread, but his Vice-Captain had cheerfully assured him that as far as he knew, all was well.

“Hm.” Anna Marie hums lightly.  Her brow doesn’t quite furrow, but she looks thoughtful.  “I wonder—”

“No use speculating,” Azazel interrupts her gruffly.  The Second Division Captain stands to her left, eyes closed while his long, pointed tail flicks back and forth slowly.  “The Commander will tell us soon enough.”

“Will he be here soon, then?” another voice picks up from Charles’ right, and Charles freezes.  “The meeting was called for exactly half past the hour, and it’s now—”

Azazel cracks an eye open lazily, regarding the Third Division Captain with glacier-blue.  “Ah yes.  This is, what?  Your first Captain meeting since being promoted?  The Commander will arrive when he arrives.  He is not a hurried man.”

“My second, actually.”  The words are accompanied by a roll of reiatsu, which actually makes it easier for Charles to breathe; the opposite of its probably-intended effect.  Scott Summers has only held his rank as Captain for about 200 years, making him one of the youngest in the room.  The younger Captains are always easy to distinguish—they still feel that they need to prove themselves, despite having passed every imaginable test to stand where they are now.

Anna Marie is watching him so Charles swallows, and makes himself say, “I’m sure he’ll be here soon.  I perceived that the matter was urgent.”  He doesn’t turn his head.  His skin feels like it is stretched too thin, taunt across his bones.

Azazel grunts, his eye sliding shut again.  He’s clearly finished with the conversation even though Charles can feel Scott simmering beside him.  Scott’s spirit pressure there, filling up and occupying that exact space is _wrong_.  Charles can feel himself winding tighter and tighter, only barely resisting the urge to put as much distance possible between Scott and himself. 

It’s nothing personal.  It just shouldn’t be Scott standing beside him, filling up and occupying that exact space.

“Not too urgent, I hope,” Anna Marie says serenely, her voice brokering some of the tension.  “It’s too lovely of a day to be cooped up inside for long.  The Commander ought to install windows at the very least, don’t you think?  Such a stuffy old room.”

“It’s supposed to rain tonight,” Scott says, allowing the topic change even though he speaks stiffly.  “Which is good.  We need the rain.”

“Ah,” Charles says without really meaning to, closing his eyes, “I hate the rain.”

 

X

 

The ground reverberates with every roll of thunder, vibrating long and deep as lightning flashes with a loud crack, rending the sky in two with bright, angry bolts that lance through the air, there and gone.  The rain is heavy, pouring like buckets and casting a grey pallor across the Seireitei and slowing everything to a quiet halt as everyone seeks dry shelter indoors.

“Sorry I’m late,” are the first words out of Erik’s mouth as he alights in the doorway, utterly drenched and sour for it.  “I practically had to _swim_ to get here—”

“There’s no real rush,” Charles says with a laugh, rising to greet him.  “Not in this weather.”

Erik meets him halfway and his lips are covered in water drops, cold from the rain, and Charles laps them up before Erik makes an impatient sound and licks his own way into Charles’ mouth where warmth awaits.  Charles tips his head back with a small sound, parting his lips pliantly and reaching up to tangle his hands in Erik’s damp hair, dragging his fingers through the wet strands as the kiss deepens.  He’s pressed up against Erik’s front now, plastered to him much like his drenched clothes are and Charles can feel the damp beginning to spread to his own but that hardly matters in the face of what Erik’s currently doing with his tongue.

They only stop when Erik gives an involuntary shiver, and he pulls back gently to rest his forehead against Charles’ with a sigh.  “I hate rain.”

“I like it,” Charles answers him, grinning.  He runs his fingers through Erik’s hair some more, pushing it up straight into a mess of jagged spikes and then laughs at Erik’s expression.  “Come on, let’s get you out of those wet clothes before you get sick.”

“Don’t think I can’t see straight through you,” Erik says dryly, but he doesn’t resist as Charles tugs him lightly into his quarters.  “You’re completely transparent.”

“Oh?” Charles asks loftily.  He steps around behind Erik, helping him shrug out of his sleeveless white Captain’s haori.  “How so?”

“You only want me naked.” Erik says matter-of-factly.  He runs a hand through his hair, messing up the spikes Charles has made.  He makes Charles’ normally adequate room seem too small, standing in the middle of it and yet somehow taking up all the space.  Charles has only one or two candles lit and in their flickering light Erik is distinctly outlined, his whipcord-lean body thrown into sharper relief whenever lightning flashes outside.  He’s a tiger in a cage, and he’s looking at Charles with glinting, speculative eyes.

“So that’s not why you came to visit?” Charles asks innocently, his voice somehow remaining steady.  He turns away to spread Erik’s haori over the back of a chair so it can air-dry.  “Because if you really just want to sit and talk shop while you wait for the rain to let up, I’d be more than happy to discuss the merits of—”

“Oh shut up,” Erik growls in his ear, suddenly directly behind him, and Charles lets out a rather undignified yelp as he’s scooped up from behind in time with another crash of thunder, brought kicking and flailing back against a firm, broad chest.

“Erik—” Charles’ gasping laugh turns into a small strangled sound as Erik begins to mouth at the side of his neck, automatically tipping his head to one side to allow Erik better access even as he protests breathlessly, “Erik, honestly, put me down—”

Erik’s answer is to dump him forward onto the bed, letting him bounce forward on his hands and knees before crawling up after him, collapsing down on top of him and crushing him to the bed.  Charles laughs, squirming beneath Erik’s familiar weight, struggling out from beneath him and attacking back, rolling them both over so that Erik ends up on his back while he sits triumphantly on top of him, grinning down at him and catching bits and snatches of Erik’s face every time the lightning outside flashes.

Erik looks nearly unbearably fond, any lingering remnants of tension drained entirely from his body as he lies relaxed and at ease below him.  His hands come up to trace slowly up and down Charles’ sides, not quite yet teasing but rather just touching for the sake of it—here in the sanctuary of Charles’ quarters where they can put aside the responsibilities of Gotei 13 Captains and merely be Charles and Erik, two souls in a vast sea of many.

Charles leans down to kiss him, their lips sliding together and parting at once as Erik draws him in, broad hands now splayed across Charles’ back to hold him down in place, casually commanding as they move their mouths languidly against one another.  Erik still tastes like the rain, his reiatsu bright and pulsing like a livewire beneath his physical being, electrifying like lightning.  He’s heady and intoxicating and Charles is utterly addicted; he could spend his entire life caught up in the swells of Erik, in every last spirit particle that makes Erik who he is, real and solid and whole.

It would be frightening were Charles not aware of Erik’s own regard.

They’re not in a hurry, not with the storm and the otherwise slow, obligation-free evening, so getting undressed is a gradual affair, a sleeve slipped off here and there between long bouts of kissing.  Charles spends a small eternity mapping out Erik’s distinct jawline with his lips until Erik finally lets out a low, rumbling growl like thunder, shifting beneath him with a flex of muscles and rolling them over to the side, finally pulling off Charles’ black kosode in the same motion and sending it in the same direction that his Captain’s haori had gone some time before—off the edge of the bed.

Erik rolls them the rest of the way, reversing their positions fully so that now he looms over Charles, carefully pinning him down in place.  He returns his full attention to Charles’ throat, trailing wet, openmouthed kisses down to the juncture of Charles’ neck and shoulder where he begins to suck, stopping Charles’ attempts to push the rest of Erik’s still-damp clothes away entirely when the smaller man is reduced to fisting his hands in the fabric tightly with a moan.  Erik only laughs, which Charles feels rather than hears, watching Erik’s shoulders shake with mirth even as he’s reduced to squirming again.  He rolls his hips up and this time it’s Erik who groans, right up against Charles’ pulse in such a way that Charles feels it reverberate through his entire body.

They lose what little they have left of their clothing, dropping articles off the edge of the bed haphazardly until all that remains is the silky glide of skin on skin, pressed together from shoulder to hip as Erik settles his comforting, familiar weight over Charles.  Charles shivers once and then sighs, his turn to reach up and wrap his arms around Erik’s back, running fingertips over every last inch of accessible, bare skin.

“I miss you,” Erik murmurs beneath the next rumble of thunder, shifting under Charles’ hands and Charles can feel every muscle in his back flex, “they never told me that once I became Captain I’d only get to see you once in a blue moon.”  He thrusts down once, quick and aborted, but still enough to rub their cocks together.

“You could have declined the rank,” Charles gasps out, eyes flickering shut for a moment as he rocks up again into the brilliant, fizzling sensation, “been my Vice-Captain inst— _oh_ , E-Erik—”

Erik’s long, elegant finger slides inside him, working back and forth slowly as Erik watches him from above even as he shifts so that he’s not in danger of crushing Charles beneath him.  Charles goes slack, eyes half-lidded and his legs falling open wider as Erik touches his most intimate spot, adding a second finger with more slick to ease the initial burn.

“We’d end up murdering each other,” Erik whispers thoughtfully against Charles’ lips, ducking his head down to kiss him as he starts to scissor his fingers gently, stretching Charles open.  Charles’ cock, caught aching with need between Charles’ belly and Erik’s thigh, smears a glistening trail of precome across their skin.  “Our Division would be horrified.”

Charles starts to laugh but it ends up coming out more like a moan as Erik reaches his prostate, pressing his fingers up against the bundle of nerves until Charles is jerking beneath him, rolling his hips up to fuck himself on Erik’s fingers, a litany of small, desperate sounds falling from his lips.  It _has_ been awhile since they’ve found time to be together, like this, even with their combined efforts to have the Third and Fifth Divisions work more closely than is usual for the Gotei 13.

“Shh,” Erik soothes him when Charles unwillingly lets out a small whimper as Erik withdraws his fingers.  His other hand strokes the side of Charles’ face, tracing softly across Charles’ cheekbone.  Lightning flashes again, and in that brief snapshot of time Charles sees Erik looking down at him, eyes brimming with affection and something else that runs deeper, resonating out between them in the same mutual understanding that they’ve had for a long, long time now.  “I’ve got you.  I’m right here.”

“Closer,” Charles grits out, and then throws back his head with a cry that’s mostly muffled by the next roll of thunder as Erik thrusts into him in one smooth motion.

“Charles,” Erik groans, pressing forward until he bottoms out, his balls flush against Charles’ ass, “so tight—”

“Move,” Charles answers breathlessly, hips twitching where he’s pinned down by the incredible fullness of Erik’s cock buried all the way inside him, “please, move, I want, I need—”

His voice cuts out when Erik obeys, pulling back only to snap his hips forward again, making them both gasp.  Erik’s movements grow steadier after that, fucking down into Charles with a nearly unbearable rhythm as he drives Charles closer and closer towards the edge, bracing himself with both arms on either side of Charles’ head.  Charles can only hold on to Erik’s forearms tightly, rocking up to meet Erik on every thrust, dizzy with both need and fulfillment all at once as they pant in their shared breathing space, eyes locked and unable to look away, enraptured by each other.

Very suddenly Erik stops, his cock buried as deeply as it can go even as he sits up, sliding one hand back to grip Charles’ leg and hike it up into the air.  On his back, Charles quivers, vibrating with desire and the rush of his own blood as his heart pounds at a million miles an hour, gazing up at Erik as his lips move soundlessly, silent pleas for completion.

“I love you,” Erik tells him, in this quiet lull between rumbling thunder with only the sound of pattering rain on the roof overhead, the entire universe narrowed down to just the two of them, here and now.

“Erik,” Charles manages to reply, past the point of coherence but utterly heartfelt all the same, every last bit of crackling desire sparking through his bones like lightning itself, searing with nearly overwhelming potency—he loves Erik, heart and soul, and every atom in between.

They come together, Charles painting white stripes across both of their chests with a cry while Erik’s hips stutter as he shakes apart inside Charles, dropping his hold on Charles’ leg while he pushes forward to fill Charles with hot, wet come and making Charles’ toes curl.  They don’t move for a few long moments, Erik half-collapsed down on top of Charles and Charles still drifting back down from a euphoric high, reaching up shakily to run his fingers through Erik’s hair.

Erik hums appreciatively, the sound welling up from deep within his chest, a tiny tremor that makes Charles shiver even as he smiles, still overly sensitive, and especially with Erik still inside him.  It isn’t uncomfortable, though.  It’s perfect.

Outside the rain still pours, the thunder growing fainter and fainter in the distance.

 

X

 

The Captain Commander and First Division Captain of the Gotei 13 is said to hold enough reiatsu to repower a dying star but none of them feel him coming; nothing one moment and then in the next, _everything_ —a presence so potent and demanding that Charles can feel every particle in the room straining to realign itself obediently with the superior force.

Charles keeps his eyes closed, remaining still even as he feels Scott shift beside him.  The Commander’s presence unfolds in the room like water flowing over a flat surface, filling up every last crack and cranny available, leaving no space uncovered.  An assertive man, the Commander.  Charles has known him for centuries now and true to form he’s barely changed through all the years, dominating the room casually yet pointedly as he walks down the center of their two files.  He’ll have his hands clasped neatly behind his back, and the same half-smile playing around the corners of his lips; the kind of almost condescending smirk that suggests the wearer knows more than you about any given subject at any given point in time.

It’s an arrogance not without substantial reason, however—the Captain-Commander has been a single entity for close to two thousand years, the original founder of the Gotei 13 and for many centuries was the Head Instructor of the Academy.  There are, Charles believes it is safe to assume, not many things that Sebastian Shaw doesn’t know more about than anyone else.

“Good afternoon, friends,” he greets them when he reaches the end of the chamber, a lazy drawl that has ground more than one set of nerves to dust, “a pity we had to spoil it by convening.  I shan’t keep you long, I hear it’s supposed to rain later.”

Charles’ reiatsu _snaps_ , an audible crack that echoes off the high ceiling loudly in the sudden deathly silence, reacting before he can stop himself.  He opens his eyes, turning his head towards the Captain-Commander who stares straight back through a half-lidded gaze, relaxed and at ease in his high-backed chair, hands resting idly on the gilded armrests.  On purpose, he said that _on purpose_ and Charles can feel himself quivering, the frayed ends of his spirit pressure flapping like the torn edges of a flag in a maelstrom.

Shaw holds his gaze, the corners of his mouth twitching knowingly.  None of the other Captains dare to look up, still as statues in serene apathy.  Only Scott shows any sign of disquiet, having taken a step to the side when Charles’ reiatsu had lashed out, leaving a gap wider than normal between them and disturbing the symmetry of the lines.

“Sebastian,” Anna Marie says, calm and unfailingly polite, her voice made to ring with pure sincerity by her accent alone.  Out of all the Captains present she is the only one who calls the Commander by his first name and easy familiarity, most likely a product of their similar longevity.  Rumors circulate that the Fourth Division Captain is the only being in existence that Commander Shaw is afraid of, were he capable of fear.  “May I inquire the purpose of this council?”

“You may,” Shaw says, his gaze sweeping away from Charles as his attention refocuses and settles, easily as that.  Charles slowly unclenches his fists.  “Troubling news has been brought from the Human World.”

No one says a word, though Charles imagines that there are several different kinds of thoughts running through each of the other Captain’s heads.  To be a Captain, Charles has learned over the long years, is to show nothing in the face of your fellow Captains lest you be taken for incompetent and weak.  He has no doubt of what they must think of him and his teetering stance on the edge of falling apart completely.

He closes his eyes again, exhausted.

“Three months ago, Henry McCoy, unseated member of our Twelfth Division, was assigned to the Human World,” Shaw says, nearly careless with the way he sounds.  Charles can picture him addressing some distant point at the end of the council chamber above all their heads, speaking to the lofty heights that he holds himself to.  “He spent his first month as directed, patrolling for Hollows and eliminating them as required.  Captain Essex’s records indicate that young McCoy was very prompt with his check-ins for the first month.  Two months ago, however, our friend McCoy went missing, and only recently has he been relocated.”

Here it comes.  Charles is vaguely curious despite himself in a distant, detached kind of way.  Whatever Henry McCoy has been doing in his two months of absence must be particularly offensive, if it’s cause for the Captains to be assembled.  He can think of no reason directly off the top of his head, but Charles hasn’t paid much attention to anything at all lately in the past 200 years.  Maybe there’s another war going on in the Human World again, and Henry McCoy has unwittingly become entangled in it.

“It has been discovered that Henry McCoy is guilty of high treason,” Shaw says, and he could be talking about the weather again for all that it seems to matter, “and is to be placed under arrest for the crime of transferring his Shinigami powers to a human.”

 

X

 

Later Charles will remember the chain events preceding the end of his world clinically, a series of deliberate steps anointed by flashes of memory all leading up to hollow emptiness.

It starts with Erik still inside him, softening, yet neither of them willing to move quite yet as Charles continues to run his fingers through Erik’s hair, half-dozing in the afterglow and content with Erik’s comforting, familiar weight on top of him.  It starts with Erik shifting, mouthing lazily at Charles’ collarbone, the beginning of a promise for a second round.  It starts with Charles laughing, tugging on Erik’s hair teasingly, and the curve of Erik’s smile into his skin.

It’s followed by the Hell Butterfly, small and black, fluttering into the room and landing on the windowsill, wings folding open-closed, open-closed, open-closed to dry from the rain.  It’s followed by Erik sitting up, pulling out gently and stroking Charles’ cheek one last time, and then the both of them getting dressed quickly and efficiently, Charles a few moments behind on the account of cleaning himself off, though a little less thoroughly than he usually prefers.  It’s followed by Erik holding out a hand for the Butterfly to perch deftly on one of his fingers to relay the message it carries.

There’s been an incident.  Only one member of a Third Division squad sent out on a reconnaissance mission has returned.  It is likely that the others are dead.  Charles puts a hand on Erik’s tense back at the news, biting the inside of his own cheek in horror.  The one girl who did return was brought immediately to the hospital, her condition critical, but now she’s gone missing.

“I have to go,” Charles remembers Erik saying, “she’s one of mine.”

“I’ll come with you,” Charles knows he answered, unhesitating and sincere because where Erik goes Charles always follows, and he knows it’s killing Erik, to have lost members of his Division, the people he’s in charge of and is supposed to protect, so if Charles can help him find the remaining girl then it’s the least he can do.

It’s followed by Erik kissing him, soft and intimate but only for a moment, and had Charles known then that it would be their last, he would’ve held on a little tighter, a little longer, a little more _please, don’t go_.

But Charles doesn’t know this, doesn’t know anything, so it’s followed by the both of them leaving the warm sanctuary of Charles’ rooms behind and ducking out into the night and rain, flash stepping to avoid the worst of the drops.  He remembers his waraji and tabi quickly soaking through as they splash through puddles, he remembers checking his speed because he’s always been fast, but arriving before Erik doesn’t seem appropriate this time.

He remembers arriving outside the hospital, the last known location of Erik’s missing Division member, and he remembers that it’s followed immediately by distinct, overwhelming horror.

It never really goes away.

 

X

 

“I fail to see why Captain Essex cannot clean up his own mess,” Azazel rumbles, thick arms still folded across his chest.  His voice permeates the air, drawing up a brief silence as it cuts through the debate that has finally sprung up in the face of the troubling news.  “This concerns me very little, Commander, as my duties look inward, to the Seireitei.  Not the Human World.”

“As do mine,” Essex snaps, his normally oily tones frigid and biting, “and I’d say that the Twelfth Division R&D department is slightly busier than the Stealth Force at this point in time.”

Azazel’s posture doesn’t change but he opens his eyes fully for the first time.  “Shall I draw, then?” he asks in his low, calm voice, the red hilt of his Zanpakutō is stark against his white haori.  As Captain of the Second Division, Azazel is Commander-in-Chief of the Onmitsukidō.  Charles has never witnessed it directly but knows just as well as everyone else present in the room that when the Commander-in-Chief draws his blade, he summons the Executive Branch of the Onmitsukidō—the ninja.

“Gentlemen,” Shaw says, indulgently amused despite the fact that two Captains are threatening to start a war right in the middle of the council chamber, “no need for such drastic measures.  Captain Essex, I am well aware of how busy you are, and my dear Azazel, there’s no need to turn such a blind eye to matters in the Human World.”

“Respectfully, Commander, I do not believe this is a matter for Captains,” Jean says coolly into the brief silence that follows, where Essex huffs once and Azazel closes his eyes again indifferently.  Charles can feel the beginnings of a headache, pounding in each of his temples and steadily increasing.  “Send Vice-Captains after this McCoy, if even that.  If he is unranked then he poses very little threat.”

“Ah, Captain Grey, he is unranked and yet the human he transferred his powers to has increased exponentially in strength and skill,” Shaw replies, eyes glittering.  The Commander is a difficult man to read under any circumstances, and all the more so now—Charles is unable to ascertain as to what Shaw’s intentions are, treading the surprisingly fine line between treating the situation as an emergency or as something that doesn’t matter at all.  “It would ease my conscience best to send a Captain, taking into account this unknown factor.”

“We are all at your disposal,” Jean replies neutrally, but now no one in the room is looking directly at the Commander.  No one wants to lower themselves to a milk run, perceiving themselves as far too important for such a task.  Charles very nearly volunteers out of sheer spite, but in the end he doesn’t.  All he wants to do is retreat to Fifth Division barracks to meditate in his quarters, clear the taste of bile from his mouth.

In the end, he isn’t given a choice.  “Captain Xavier, I would like for you to go,” Shaw says, regarding him with cold finality, his words sinking like stones in Charles’ pool of false calm.  “Arrest Henry McCoy and eliminate the abomination he has created, since you’re so very good at that.”

 

X

 

The rain obscures most of Charles’ vision as he runs, coming down thick and heavy from the dark night sky overhead, soaking him to the bone.  The scene of the massacre outside the hospital is fresh in his mind, red blood washing away slowly in the rain but the bodies cold and lifeless strewn out across the ground in pieces.  Charles almost vomits.

There was something inside her, the sobbing orderly from Fourth Division had said, there was something inside her and it wanted to come out.

Much later, when Charles can bear thinking about it, he does the research.  Metastacia.  An old Hollow long hunted by the Gotei 13 for its particular sport of eating only Shinigami.  Able to fuse with a person’s body, cunning and sly Metastacia had happened upon Erik’s squad and destroyed them, fusing with the last member and using her body to lie in wait until she was brought back to the hospital.

He knows none of this now, sprinting into the dark forest where the Hollow was last seen entering.  They cannot allow the Hollow to escape, not while it’s in the middle of the Seireitei.  He and Erik have split up to cover more ground.  They’re both Captains, they can handle it.  They’ll find the Hollow faster this way.

Through the dark and the rain, Charles hears a scream.

He changes direction with the tiniest shift of his ankle, flash stepping through the trees with near reckless speed in the direction of the scream.  He’s one of the fastest Shunpo users in the Gotei 13, his smaller frame allowing for speeds matched by few, and it’s this coupled with the lightning-quick reflexes he’s had to develop because of it that saves him several times over from smashing into tree trunks.

Ahead there is a clearing and in the clearing is a girl, hunched over herself with her hands clawing at her head as she screams again, agonized and riding the edge of a jagged sob.  Charles alights beside her and then has to stop himself from flinching back when lightning flashes—she’s covered in blood, not all of it her own.

“Get it out,” she croaks beneath the sound of the rain, “get it out, get it out, get it—”

“How can I help,” Charles asks her, reaching one hand out towards her trembling body, “can you tell me what’s—”

Her last scream pierces the air and Charles leaps back with a cry when her body _rips_ , tearing apart in a spray of hot blood that splatters across him.  He steps backwards in surprised, wary fear as a massive, hulking form unfolds itself from the ruins of the girl’s body like a nightmare come to life.  The spirit pressure alone tells Charles instantly it’s a Hollow; this one a six-limbed creature with a large, flame-patterned mask and a flock of tentacles on its back.

“Captain-flesh,” it says, opening a wide, grinning mouth as it rotates to face him, tentacles undulating wildly in the air.  “I’ve never had Captain-flesh.  So young and fresh.  I’ll eat you next.”

Charles hits it with a silent Kidō spell, dodging to the side as the Hollow ignites with an explosion and a scream, lighting up the clearing for a brief moment in wild, licking flames that hiss and sizzle in the rain.  He makes the single mistake of pausing, peering through the smoke, because surely a spell of that caliber with his reiatsu behind it is enough to finish the Hollow off.

Howling out nowhere, the Hollow throws itself at him, mouth open in a snarl, one of its tentacles lashing forward.  Charles skids on the wet ground, sodden clothes weighing him down, one hand flying down to grip the hilt of his Zanpakutō and draw—

The tentacle grazes his forearm but that’s all it takes, his arm snapping like a twig as the Hollow’s spirit pressure surges forward enough to temporarily overwhelm his own, and white-hot pain lances upwards and manifests as a scream as Charles stumbles back.  The tentacle snaps across his front, knocking him off his feet entirely and Charles slams backwards into a tree, his cry cut short by all the air being forced out of his lungs by impact, sliding down to a crumpled sitting position at the base of the tree.

“They don’t make Captains like they used to, do they?” the Hollow says, advancing on him slowly.  Charles clutches his ruined arm to his chest, breathing harshly.  Think.  _Think_.  He isn’t fully ambidextrous but he can hold his own, usually, though this Hollow is—different.  It’s not a Menos but it’s stronger than one, somehow.  He’s never encountered one like it before.  “You look like you should still be playing with wooden sticks at your Academy.”

Charles grits his teeth.  Keeping his arm pressed to his chest, he slowly begins to slide his other hand down towards the hilt of his Zanpakutō.  He has a small chance, if it leaps at him again, and if he can draw his blade quickly enough, as long as it doesn’t notice what he’s—

“I see you, little Shinigami!” the Hollow snarls, launching itself forward with its mouth open wide, and Charles yanks his blade out and closes his eyes, bracing himself for impact—

Neither he nor the Hollow sense Erik’s spirit pressure until it’s too late.

There’s a wet squelch, horribly loud over the falling rain, and a weak, choking breath.  Charles, still tensed for a collision that has yet to come, cracks open his eyes slowly.

Erik looms over him where he sits, hands pressed against the trunk above Charles’ head and his body like a shield between him and the Hollow.  His body, with three tentacles bursting out of his chest from where they’ve penetrated his back from behind.

Charles stares up at him with wide, horrified eyes.  “Erik?” he whispers, voice trembling.

“He’s gonna,” Erik grits out, lips already red with blood, “he’s gonna do to me—what he did to her.  Don’t let him—Charles.  Don’t—”  He throws back his head and screams when the tentacles begin to move, absorbing into him, a living parasite, and Charles sits frozen in place, _not doing a thing_ —

The Hollow reels Erik back, drawing him off Charles and shoving its complete, bulky mass into his lean frame with a series of sounds that plague Charles’ nightmares for the rest of his life, wholly consuming Erik from the inside out.  When Erik’s body straightens, moving stiffly, he’s little more than a reanimated corpse that turns its head jerkily to look at Charles.

“Another young Captain,” the Hollow says with Erik’s mouth, its voice a twisted mix of Erik’s familiar accent that before has whispered so many sweet nothings into Charles’ ears and the harsh, jarring tones of the Hollow’s guttural speech.  “Such high hopes for wasted talent.  Such sweet Captain flesh.”  It lifts one hand and drags it shakily down the side of Erik’s face.  “He’s still alive.  I’ll let him watch as I tear you limb from limb and eat you.”

Mouth hanging open in a sick parody of a laugh, the Hollow dives at Charles with Erik’s body, bloody hands outstretched for Charles’ throat, and Charles lets out a sob as he realizes what he has to do, what Erik’s asked him to do, what he has no choice but to—

Erik is on top of him, slippery hands closing around Charles’ neck but Charles lifts his blade and thrusts it straight into Erik’s stomach.

The Hollow shrieks, twisting and writhing and only serving to drive Charles’ blade in Erik deeper, howling one final time, long and loud before bursting into particles, dead at last.  Erik’s blood pools down on Charles, running slick and wet in the rain.

Erik is breathing shallowly where he slumps over Charles, impaled on his Zanpakutō .  His head rests on Charles’ shoulder.  “Good.  Good.  You got him.”

Charles shakes, entire body quaking where he’s pinned beneath Erik’s dead weight and the tree.  “No,” he gasps out, and it feels like each word is being torn out of him along with a piece of his heart, “no, Erik, this isn’t— _Erik_ —”

“Shh,” Erik whispers, gentle and soft, the way he’s only ever been with Charles, “you’re here.  That’s all I need.  I’m sorry—” he coughs weakly, bubbling wetness deep in his lungs, “—I’m sorry there wasn’t—more time.  I love you.  Thank you.”

It ends with a quiet sigh, with warm blood gone cold, with the rain continuing to pour.  It ends with them finding Charles still pinned against the tree by Erik’s body, and it ends with Charles eventually losing his voice after being unable to stop screaming Erik’s name.  It ends with the others having to pry them both apart when Charles refuses to let go.

It ends with emptiness, a hollow, all-consuming whole.


	3. Curse Named Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shout out to **ikeracity** , who has yelled at me about this fic at least every other day for months. <3 I hope this makes the wait worth it!
> 
> Chapter title casually lifted from chapter 300 of Tite Kubo's _Bleach_.

There are three different ways to become a Captain in the Gotei 13.

The first and most commonly practiced method is the Captain Proficiency Test, which requires the soul taking it to perform Bankai. Bankai is the second and final release form of a Zanpakutō, and takes at least ten years or more of training in order to master it—very few ever reach this level of skill with their blade. The Captain Proficiency Test must be witnessed by at least three existing Captains, including the Captain-Commander, in order to be deemed legitimate and worthy.

The second requires the personal recommendations from at least six existing Captains, and approval from at least three of the remaining seven. As the thirteen Captains are hard-pressed to agree even on simpler matters, this method of attaining Captaincy is rarely possible to achieve.

The third and final method is trial by combat—to defeat an existing Captain with at least 200 witnesses from that Captain’s Division. Generally reserved for the Eleventh Division’s use, this method is generally looked down upon as barbaric and unnecessary, even though it does potentially allow for bypassing having mastery of Bankai.

Charles masters Bankai after eleven years of grueling training and passes the Proficiency Test with flying colors, elevated to Captain of the Fifth Division one day in the spring while the Captain Commander, Anna Marie, and Azazel look on. The only one whose opinion truly matters to him, however, watches from the other end of the long, rocky valley that serves as the showcase grounds for the test, and whose presence Charles is keenly aware of even at the height of the test, when he has moved past Shikai, the first release, and has fully unleashed his Bankai, flooding him with his own power that has expanded to ten times his normal capacity.

But Erik has always been his constant, his boulder set in the midst of turbid waters, unmovable even in the face of chaos—he’ll always be able to sense Erik. Erik is close to reaching his own Bankai, will almost certainly achieve it by the end of next year, but today he’s taken a break from training to watch Charles beat him at their friendly competition laid down upon their completion at the Academy half a century ago—the race to become a Captain first.

Charles lets his Bankai fade, thanking the Zanpakutō for sharing its power with him before sheathing the blade neatly at his hip, familiar weight falling readily into place. Then he turns and flash steps back to where the Commander and the other two Captains stand for observation, kneeling down to wait for their judgment.

“Well done, Charles,” Anna Marie speaks first with a warm smile, “we should be honored to count you as one of our number.”

He dips his head once in gratitude. He’s content with his performance, and confident that he’s displayed his Bankai well enough, but even Captain Anna Marie, known throughout the entirety of the Gotei 13 for being unfailingly kind, will not hesitate to inform him that he’s failed. That she has deemed him worthy without a hitch is relieving.

“He is sufficient,” Azazel says, speaking to Shaw rather than Charles, and at Shaw’s gracious nod the Second Division Captain _poofs_ out of sight without further word.

“Charles Xavier,” the Captain-Commander says, studying him through half-lidded eyes even as he smiles benevolently, “I am impressed.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Bankai quite like yours, even in similarity.”

“We are all unique,” Charles says neutrally, unsure what Shaw fully means. He’s only directly interacted with the Captain-Commander a small handful of times, and each one has always been on par with navigating a field of landmines.

Or at least for Charles, it has been. He doesn’t hold the same amount of favor with the Captain-Commander as Erik seems to.

“Of course.” Shaw chuckles once, indulgently amused. “I must admit, I never expected that it would be you who I administered this test to first.”

At that, Charles looks up in unmasked confusion. “Sir?”

“I remember you and Erik back in your Academy days,” Shaw answers, oddly reminiscent for a man who either of them hardly interacted with. “Both of you showed vast potential even then, undoubtedly, but I always imagined that Erik would reach Bankai first.”

“Erik is nearly there, sir,” Charles replies, struggling not to let his tone grow defensive. Even Erik has admitted that Charles is more in tune with his spiritual pressure, able to balance his reiatsu without much exertion; something Erik struggled with endlessly in the beginning, natural because of his more impulsive nature. Nevertheless, Erik has come far in the past decade, and Charles is more proud of him than he is of himself.

Beyond that, he’s still unsure what point Shaw is pursuing, besides the almost painfully obvious insinuation that he would prefer to have Erik as a Captain over Charles.

“Yes, I expect nothing less,” Shaw says, smiling again, without it ever quite reaching his eyes. “Congratulations, Charles. I leave the Fifth Division to you.” Then he’s gone in the blink of an eye, flash stepping past where Charles kneels and back towards the Seireitei.

“Sebastian doesn’t like when his predictions do not come true,” Anna Marie says calmly as Charles rises. “In a few days, he’ll have forgotten about it. I look forward to working with you, Charles.”

“Thank you,” Charles tells her gratefully, “and I with you.”

She smiles gently. “I’ll let y’all celebrate, then, shall I?”

Charles barely has time to sputter before she too has taken her leave; her footsteps light and fleeting whereas Shaw’s passing had been more akin to a freight train. She’s barely gone a second when Charles feels Erik’s spirit pressure fast approaching, and he turns just in time to be swept up off his feet entirely into strong arms.

“Erik!” Charles laughs, all the tension from both the stress of the exam and the odd aftermath falling away from him at once, and then their lips are meeting in a long, slow slide.

“Congratulations,” Erik murmurs against his mouth, “I knew you’d pass.”

“You’re next,” Charles tells him, a little breathless, knocking their foreheads together companionably. His arms rest on Erik’s shoulders, fingers linked together behind Erik’s neck, a fond smile curling at the corners of his lips.

“Of course I am,” Erik answers, nonchalantly confident, “but right now’s not about me, is it? _Captain_.”

“Shaw was hoping you would take the test,” Charles admits, brow furrowed with unease once more, “I think he’d rather have you as one of his Captains than me.”

“He’ll have to settle for having both of us,” Erik says firmly, “the Fifth Division Captain’s chair was open, Charles. It’s yours. You were their Lieutenant.”

“They _do_ all think you’re insane,” Charles remarks in hesitant agreement.

Erik grins, wide and toothy. “Good. Anyway, my Captain is old as it is. Maybe he’ll finally accept Shaw’s proposition by the time I reach Bankai.”

“Proposition?” Charles asks.

“The Commander’s been coming by Third Division a lot lately,” Erik says with a shrug, “I overheard them talking. He wants to nominate the Captain to join the Central 46.”

“A high honor,” Charles remarks, blinking once in surprise. The Central 46 are Soul Society’s judicial authority, comprised of forty members plus six judges. To hold a seat on the Central 46 is to hold a lofty position in Soul Society, as the Central 46 answer only to the Soul King.

Erik nods. “I think he’ll go for it. Like I said, he’s old. It’ll be like switching to a desk job.”

“Captaincy seems like it’ll be a desk job,” Charles says, wrinkling his nose, “are we sure this is what we wanted?”

Erik laughs. “It may be boring, but then at least we can bring our Divisions together. Spend more time with each other.”

“ _Our_ Divisions?” Charles says, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t recall you having one yet, Vice-Captain.”

“I practically run the place anyway,” Erik says dismissively, but he grins again, ducking down to kiss Charles softly. “I _am_ proud of you, even if you beat me.”

“I only got here first so I could save you a spot,” Charles assures him cheekily, his laugh giving way to an indignant yelp when Erik squeezes him hard enough to lift him off his feet again in retaliation, spinning them both around once. His reiatsu plays off of Erik’s, winding around the warm, familiar presence; every particle of him resounding with every particle of Erik.

“Enough about me,” Erik says, setting him down gently, happy and fond, “today is about you.”

“In that case, I want a proper celebration,” Charles answers mischievously, pulling back from Erik, “and you can only participate if you can catch me first.”

He takes off running, the world becoming a blur as he flash steps back towards the Seireitei, free and delighted in triumph as Erik gives chase. Erik’s right. Today is about him, and what he’s accomplished. He knows in his soul that Erik won’t be far behind him, literally and figuratively—Erik will achieve his own Bankai, and Erik will one day stand beside him as a Captain too.

For where else would their future lie, if not together, equal, as partners?

In the end it’s not a chase at all and they hold hands at Shunpo all the way back to the Fifth Division barracks, and their resulting celebration lasts all the way till dawn.

 

X

 

The rain falls thick and heavy, each drop like a blow as they land on his arms and shoulders and upturned face, soaking him down to the core. Once he liked the rain, reveled in its ability to cleanse and allow for fresh starts with the way it could wash everything away for a clean slate, rejuvenating for all.

He knows better now.

At least the patter of the raindrops is steady, a constant drone of white noise that Charles allows to fill his head completely, keeping all thoughts at bay. Instead he focuses on the difference in the sound of the rain hitting the ground, the leaves of the plants, the roof of the buildings sandwiching the small pocket garden, concentrating only on turning them into a wordless melody to keep himself from remembering another, different day in the rain long ago.

His clothes become heavy with water, his white Captain’s haori weighing on him like rocks. There is an old saying about the Captain’s haori, how to don one is to shoulder the weight of vast power and responsibility, but it’s been a different kind of weight on Charles now for the past two centuries—the crushing weight of grief bearing him down mercilessly with no reprieve. He should not be still mourning for what he has lost, should be able to look back with only wistful fondness and smile at the memory of what he once had, but he cannot.

It is hard to move on, Anna Marie has explained to him, her gentle pity cutting deeper than a katana, when your loved one has taken half of your reiatsu with them.

The frayed edges of the tear are visible to Charles now, as he stands with his feet braced apart, keeping his center of gravity low and stable while his eyes are closed. Normally he keeps his spirit pressure under tight reign, coiled in on itself in the center of his body with only the loose, frayed ends drifting free. It’s a mess now, after his brief loss of control in the Central Council Chamber, with Shaw’s casual cruelty serving to pull him apart at the seams too easily.

Charles reorders himself slowly, breathing in and out in the rain, winding his reiatsu back in where his fundamental brokenness is less visible. Erik hadn’t meant to take half of Charles with him when he’d died—for who could _ever_ mean to—and it’s as much of Charles’ fault as it is Erik’s. When Erik died his and Charles’ essences were still too tightly wound together, the barriers between them all but stripped away for a number of reasons—they’d just had intercourse, their relationship was close even without the sex, they were too used to allowing their reiatsu to merge as only true soul mates can.

When Erik died, his reiatsu died with him, ripping out nearly half of Charles’ in the process because neither of them had known; neither of them had been ready for their paths to diverge so completely and finally while they were still so closely linked.

Over the long years, Anna Marie has tried her best at coaxing Charles’ reiatsu to heal. It had been her belief that if the frayed, torn ends of Charles’ spirit pressure could be mended, and his well of power could be convinced to begin replenishing itself. Charles had allowed her to try, at first, but no real progress was ever made. His reiatsu is shattered, and with it his heart, and he’d stopped showing up to his appointments with the Fourth Division Captain.

Anna Marie, to her credit, had never pushed.

Charles doesn’t open his eyes until every last particle is contained in a tight, densely-packed ball again, only a few loose wisps trailing free. His entire body aches, still tense from the meeting earlier and the Commander’s ill-concealed hostility. Charles barely remembers the rest of the meeting, everything filled with the same white noise that the rain provides now, and he’d darted out as soon as the Captains had been dismissed.

He feels old and tired, his Captain’s haori heavy on his shoulders.

With Shunpo he’s fast enough to move between the water drops, but he’s already wet and there’s no point in avoiding them now. Instead he walks across the rest of Fifth Division at a slow, steady pace, the loud hiss of rain muffling the slow, steady breaths he draws, in and out, in and out, to further center himself. He was once a master of balancing his spiritual energy, but now he does the best that he can.

He can sense two separate reiatsu waiting in his office as he draws near. The first is familiar, one that he recognizes easily as it belongs to his Vice-Captain, but the other is only vaguely familiar, even as it registers as another being at Vice-Captain level. He slides the screen door open, dripping water all over the hardwood floor as he steps inside.

“Captain,” Sean greets him, calm and unfazed by Charles’ waterlogged appearance, “this is Vice-Captain Alex Summers of Eleventh Division.”

Alex isn’t as good at hiding his surprise, but at least he’s polite about it. “Captain Xavier,” he says, respectful but intent, “if I may, I would like to accompany you on your mission to the Material World.”

“Does Captain Muñoz know you’re here?” Charles asks him blandly, neither welcoming nor hostile as he slides his office door shut. He recalls the Eleventh Division Captain from their brief exchange before the start of the meeting. Armando Muñoz is trustworthy. It’s reasonable to believe that he hasn’t sent his Vice-Captain for any political reasons.

“Yes, sir.”

Charles studies him for a moment, but then nods. Alex is telling the truth. “I assume that he spoke to you about the council meeting, and that you’ve spoken to Sean about it as well.”

“I had to ask why he ran here in the rain,” Sean answers with a shrug. He grows unusually serious. “Do they really want us to arrest Hank?”

“Our task is to arrest Hank McCoy,” Charles answers neutrally, “among other things.”

“Captain Xavier, Sean and I have been friends with Hank since the Academy,” Alex says, spirit pressure spiking once in his clear agitation before he controls himself and continues, “and I know we won’t know the true circumstances until we find him, but please, sir. Hank isn’t a criminal.”

Even unflappable, laid-back Sean is upset, his spirit pressure frazzled and full of static. “I know we have to follow orders, Charles,” he says quietly above the sound of the rain outside, “we’re not asking you for insubordination. But we’d like to talk to Hank first. Hear his side of things. Maybe there’s been some kind of mistake.”

“Alex may accompany us,” Charles grants, not unkindly. Clearly Armando sees no harm in it, and Charles has no reasons to object either, even though he doubts that there’s been a mistake. “I have good faith that you won’t be insubordinate yourself.”

“Of course not, sir.” Alex ducks his head in thanks. “I just want to make sure Hank stands fair trial.”

“The Central 46 are nothing but fair,” Charles assures him, “it is their sole purpose to be so. I do not know Hank McCoy, but hearing the two of you speak on his behalf is enough to convince me that that whatever his reasons for transferring his power to a human were, they were not because of ill intent.”

Alex lets out a breath of relief before quickly collecting himself. “Thank you, sir.”

Sean grins. “You’re the best, Captain.”

Charles merely nods. He’s not the best anything, not by a long shot, but even so it helps to see his words have made the two Vice-Captains considerably less worried.

“Sir, I’m sorry if this is overstepping,” Alex begins haltingly, and Charles’ defenses rise back up at once at even the mere hint of prying, “but Arman—Captain Muñoz told me what the Captain-Commander said, at the end.” He meets Charles’ gaze firmly, determined. “About you. And I know that we don’t know you very well, and it’s none of our business, but—he shouldn’t have said that. That was wrong.”

Charles slowly relaxes, tension draining back out of his back and shoulders, spirit pressure settling back down from where it’d been building up as if preparing to strike. He pretends not to notice Sean watching him carefully. “Thank you, Alex,” he says, mouth full of cotton, “I’m afraid that in Commander Shaw’s eyes, however, I will always be guilty of causing the death of his favorite student.”

Alex’s expression falls. “Captain—”

“I’m sure the gatekeepers are waiting for us,” Charles interrupts, leaving no room for further word, “allow me to change into clothes less wet and then we will depart.” He moves past them both, out of his office and into his private chambers, sliding the door shut behind himself.

If he has to crouch down in the middle of the floor for a moment to collect himself, fists clenched tightly into the damp fabric of his haori where it falls across his knees before he finally moves to change, they’ll never know the difference.

 

X

 

Hank McCoy sets down his pen slowly, reading through his scratchy handwriting on the blue sticky note one more time. Short but sincere enough. It’ll do.

He slots the pen back into the cup overflowing with more pens and pencils and every color of highlighter imaginable, and then peels his sticky note off the pad, tacking it carefully to the corner of the mirror that hangs on the wall next to the dresser. It doesn’t stand out but it’s not exactly hidden, either.

He takes one final look around the messy but familiar bedroom, only allowing himself to feel the small pang of regret in his stomach for a moment before he hoists open the window and climbs out onto the ledge. It’s for the best if he leaves, he tells himself for perhaps the thousandth time. It’s better this way.

From the window it’s an easy climb out onto the roof, and a simple hop down to the grass of the side yard. As soon as his feet hit the ground Hank takes off running, swift and sure and without looking back. He can’t use Shunpo, not in this body he has to wear in the Material World, but he’s gotten himself into good enough shape so that he doesn’t get immediately winded. He’s never understood how humans can stand being trapped in literal sacks of meat and it chagrins him, just a little, that over the past few weeks he’s slowly gotten used to it.

And that’s why it’s best that he leaves, he tells himself again. He got too close. Went in too far. And it’s only a matter of time before the Soul Society comes looking. He needs to put as much distance between himself and the little house on the quiet street as he can before they catch up to him.

It’s a quiet evening, the sky turned orange and pink as the sun begins to set. He’s grown fond of this town, human as it is. He doesn’t pass many people as he continues to run, leaving behind the quaint neighborhood streets one by one. He doesn’t allow himself to look when he passes by the school, pumping his arms even harder to increase his speed. It had surprised him, at first, to realize that he’d made so many friends. He’d been welcomed and accepted into the fold easy as breathing, but now that won’t matter. They won’t remember him soon enough, his entire existence flitting out of their minds and memory as easily as it’d come.

He runs across the wide, sprawling town as the sun quickly sinks lower and lower, the sky overhead changing from orange and pink to purple, and all the street lamps flicker on to light the sidewalks that his feet pound across with no real direction in mind. There’s nowhere for him to really go. It’s not like he can hide.

In the distance, thunder rumbles.

Hank finally has to stop for a moment, a painful stitch in his side slowing him to a halt as he leans over to breathe, panting. He’s in a park of some kind, empty for now at this time of night when most people are at home for dinner. There are only a few street lamps here compared to the main streets he’d run down, casting long shadows beneath the trees, which seem taller and darker for the sake of ambiance.

He huffs out a short breath, shaking his head at himself as he straightens. He starts off at a walk this time, keeping his pace brisk but nothing close to his flat-out sprinting from before. The breeze picks up, rustling through the leaves overhead, cold with the oncoming storm.

The hair on the back of his neck slowly starts to stand on end.

Hank is halfway turned around when an explosion goes off right beneath his feet and sends him flying, tumbling head over heels through the air with a surprised shout, crashing back down to the ground several yards away. He hits the pavement hard, all the air in his lungs whooshing out and leaving him gasping painfully for a second. He scrambles back up to his feet, and whirls around to face his attacker.

“What the _fuck_ , bozo,” Alex says. He’s crouched on top of the nearest street light, leveling Hank with a narrow-eyed glare. “So it’s true. You gave your powers to a human.”

“What the hell was that for?” Hank demands, fists clenched at his sides. “And no, that’s not true at all.”

“Why else would you be in a Gigai?” Alex snaps, straightening up slowly from his crouch so that he practically towers over Hank. His glare doesn’t change, staring Hank down accusingly, as if Hank has betrayed him personally.

“I—”

There’s a small burst of spirit pressure. “Dude, Hank,” Sean says, alighting on the sidewalk a few paces away from Hank beneath the street light. “We’ve been trailing you for half and hour now and you didn’t even sense us.”

Hank closes his mouth, swallowing. It could be worse, he thinks as he looks between Alex and Sean. The Soul Society only sent two Vice-Captains to retrieve him, and they’re old friends of his. At least that means they don’t mean to kill him.

Yet.

“So where is it?” Alex asks, jumping down to stand next to Sean with a soft rustle of his black uniform, folding his arms. “Where’s the human that took your powers?”

“How do you know it was a human,” Hank asks, “you have no—”

“Don’t waste our time, Hank,” Sean interrupts him quietly, “and don’t waste yours trying to protect it.”

“You know what has to happen,” Alex adds. He pauses, gaze moving past Hank, and that’s when Hank’s heart freezes in his chest, like a cold, iron fist has wrapped around the fragile organ and begun to squeeze. “Right, Captain?”

Hank turns his head slowly.

Captain Charles Xavier stands on the edge of light cast by the street lamp, regarding Hank with cool, impassive eyes. Hank has never met the aloof Fifth Division Captain before, but the fact alone that the Soul Society has sent a Captain-level after him speaks enough for itself. He hadn’t even felt the Captain _arrive_. A Captain, who even with a Material World limiter still should have lit up every single one of Hank’s senses from miles away.

“Captain Xavier,” he says, at a loss.

“It would be best if you resisted as little as possible,” the Captain replies, quiet and detached, still measuring Hank with an unreadable, calculating gaze. Where Alex and Sean both carry their Zanpakutō visibly at their hip, Xavier’s is nowhere in sight.

That means nothing, concerning a Captain.

“We’re here to help, Hank,” Sean says, arms extended out wide in a gesture of good faith. “We have to arrest you, but we’re going to make sure that you stand a fair trial, alright?”

“So just tell us where the human is, and we can be done,” Alex says, voice hard. “Don’t get all protective and shit now, you knew from the start that it would come to this eventually. Or did you think the Gotei 13 would just overlook you? Let it slide?”

Despite how aggressive Alex sounds, neither he nor Sean have taken any steps closer to Hank, even though they both easily far outclass him in their original bodies; Hank is anchored down and stuck in his Gigai and even if he wasn’t, he still wouldn’t be afraid of either of them attacking. It’s Captain Xavier who is the unknown factor, standing eerily still in the corner of Hank’s vision and watching the scene with expressionless eyes. It’s Captain Xavier who will ultimately decide what happens here tonight.

“The human is harmless,” he says, clearing his throat. “Please. I’ll surrender, if you’ll just let—”

“You don’t get a fucking say, bozo,” Alex snaps, hand flying down to the hilt of his Zanpakutō in a clear threat, his short temper rearing its ugly head, “this isn’t a matter of you play nice and we play nice. We’re here to arrest you, and then we have to—”

“I didn’t know there was a new sheriff in town,” remarks a familiar, cocksure voice from out of the dark, and Hank wants to tilt his head back with a groan. “What’s all this talk about arresting?”

Alex and Sean whirl around, drawing their blades with identical scrapes, and Hank is torn between watching them as well as keeping Captain Xavier within his sight. A figure walks towards them down the sidewalk, the silhouette of a large broadsword slung jauntily across one shoulder, and Hank has never wanted to see anyone less in his entire life.

“Raven,” he calls, pleading silently for his words to be heeded just this once, “get out of here. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Like hell it doesn’t.” Raven steps into the light, fully visible at last. She’s gotten into her Soul Reaper form, blond hair bright against the black of her Shinigami garb. She swings her Zanpakutō down in front of her in a lazy arc, gripping the hilt with both hands as she grins. “Two—three?—against one? That hardly seems fair, don’t you think?”

“Raven,” Hank tries again, “you need to go. Now.”

“I saw your note,” Raven tells him flippantly, “and that’s a load of bullshit, Hank.”

“Who the hell are you?” Alex demands.

“Didn’t you hear him? I’m Raven.” Her grin turns wolfish. “And I’m going to beat your ass.”

“Is _this_ the human?” Sean wonders incredulously.

“You think you can take me?” Alex asks, taking a step forward, voice dangerously soft now. Hank can smell the brimstone of his spirit pressure as he begins to gather his power. “You, an untrained _human_?”

“Bring it on, hot stuff,” Raven answers, so completely out of her own league without even realizing it, “that is, unless you’re too scared.”

“Alex, no!” Hank shouts.

The Vice-Captain leaps forward to attack with a snarl, Raven launching herself to meet him halfway with a wild yell, right as lightning flashes overhead with a tremendous crash of thunder and Hank is helpless to stop his friends from—

There’s a loud, jarring _clang_ of metal colliding with metal, and everything falls still.

Captain Xavier is slotted between Alex and Raven, having moved faster than any of their eyes could follow to invade the scant space left between them at the last possible second. Alex’s sword has come down on top of the Captain’s, which Xavier has materialized and holds over his shoulder and across his back to block the blow, while he holds Raven’s sword down to the ground with one foot resting on the top edge of her blade.

Hank hardly dares to breathe.

“Captain,” Alex begins in shock, “I—”

“Enough,” Captain Xavier says calmly, and Alex falls silent at once. He pulls back, drawing his blade away from the Captain and falling in line with Sean once more.

Raven stares at the Captain. “What the—”

Captain Xavier turns his head to look at her, and Hank can’t see his expression from this angle but whatever it holds causes Raven to unconsciously straighten as she falls silent, shoulders going back and chin jutting up as she stares back with purely human defiance, even in the face of a foe who she cannot hope to match. Hank is proud of her. He’s always been proud of her.

He never should have gotten her into this.

The Captain steps back, removing his foot from her blade, and turns away from her, walking unhurriedly towards Alex and Sean as he lowers his Zanpakutō.

Raven frowns. “What, that’s it?” she demands, lifting her own Zanpakutō up, black blade glinting in the lamp light. “Don’t you walk away from me, we’re not done here!”

Captain Xavier stops. Lightning flashes overhead as he tilts his head slightly, shifting his sword around in a graceful arc so he can slowly slide it into the sheath that has appeared at his hip. “We’re done.”

The hilt of his Zanpakutō meets the sheath with a soft click, and Raven chokes on blood.

“Raven!” Hank shouts as she falls, running towards her only to be caught on either side by Alex and Sean, who grab his arms and hold him back despite his struggles. “Let me go! Raven! _Raven_!”

Raven collapses down to the sidewalk just as it begins to rain, a light drizzle at first that steadily picks up and turns into an all-out downpour within moments, soaking them all. She’s landed on her stomach, and even in the dim light Hank can make out something darker than water pooling out from beneath her, his heart wrenching in his chest because this is _all his fault_.

“What the hell,” she says, lifting her head weakly to glare at the Captain who watches her impassively, “I didn’t even see you move your—your sword.” She coughs, a wet sound gurgling in her lungs.

“Don’t move, Raven,” Hank tells her, and he can’t be sure if the water on his face is from rain or tears, “just stay still.”

“Fuck that,” she says, grinning at him even as she coughs again, “who else is gonna rescue your sorry ass from these clowns?”

“I severed her Chain of Fate,” Captain Xavier says evenly, addressing Hank rather than Raven, “whatever Shinigami powers she had are now gone. She won’t die if she gets to a human healer in time.”

“Then please, let me get her to one,” Hank beseeches, ignoring Alex and Sean on either side of him, “it’s my fault she was dragged into this. I’ll come quietly after that, but _please_. She doesn’t have to die.”

“My orders were to destroy her,” Captain Xavier replies coolly, “I’m leaving her with a chance to live.”

“That’s not good enough!” Hank snarls, lunging forward without quite meaning to, Alex and Sean dragging him back again. “That isn’t—”

Time seems to slow down as a long, gaping tear rips slowly through the sky overhead, something vast and malevolent stirring in the darkness beyond.

“What the hell is that,” Raven whispers from the ground, eyes wide.

“No way,” Alex says beside Hank, “no _way_.”

A huge, bone-white hand emerges from the tear, grabbing onto the edge as if the sky were nothing more than a curtain. Each finger is easily twice as long as any of them are tall, with nails sharp and pointed like claws. The hand draws back the edge of the tear wider, and slowly a face begins to move out into view.

Most Hollows are simply transformed Human souls, corrupt and decayed from staying in the Material World too long after death, but Hank knows of a different class of Hollows, the Menos, which are conglomerations of hundreds of Hollows; a single entity of strength far greater than any normal Hollow. Menos are created when the void within an ordinary Hollow’s heart becomes so substantial that Human souls—normal Hollow’s prey—are incapable of sustaining it. To fill the void, the Hollow will begin to devour its fellow Hollows instead.

The Menos emerging from the tear in reality now is a Gillian, the weakest class of Menos, and something Hank has only ever heard of in textbook or theory, never in actuality. Its oval white mask has a long, pointed, beak-like nose, under which lie its huge, human-like teeth, and its eye holes are empty and dark, save for the tiny, glowing red dots that serve as its eyes. Menos aren’t supposed to be able to cross over to the Material World at will like this, Hank thinks blankly in shock. Menos usually stay in Hueco Mundo, the Hollow world that resides between the Material World and Soul Society, where most of the Hollows that they consume are found.

The Gillian is poking its head out further, looming out over the town, red eyes slowly tracking over the buildings and houses. The humans below are oblivious, Hank realizes, blind to the imminent danger hanging above their heads. Humans can’t see Hollows or Soul Reapers, even ones as large as a five-story tall Gillian emerging from giant holes in the sky.

Its glowing red eyes land on them, and it opens its mouth wide to let out a bone-chilling Hollow cry.

“Sean, with me,” Captain Xavier says, redrawing his Zanpakutō soundlessly. He bends his knees slightly, coiling his muscles, and then leaps up into the sky, straight for the Gillian.

“Sir!” Sean answers, letting go of Hank to draw his own blade with a scrape, jumping up into the sky after his Captain. A Captain and Vice-Captain should be more than enough to handle one Gillian, Hank thinks in relief. Captain Xavier and Sean won’t allow the Gillian to attack the otherwise defenseless town below.

“Why isn’t it using its Cero?” Alex mutters as the two Shinigami draw closer and closer to the Menos. “What is it waiting for?”

The answer comes soon enough, everything happening in the blink of an eye. In one moment the Gillian is sat motionless, watching as Captain Xavier and Sean approach, which in that split second’s worth of time Hank _does_ agree that it’s strange—Gillians like to shoot Cero, powerful blasts of concentrated spiritual energy, at enemies, and yet this one has yet to even open its mouth after its initial roar. In the next moment, the Gillian moves, far faster than any of them expect, its huge hand darting forward to bat Sean away like a fly.

“Sean!” Alex and Hank shout together as their friend plummets back down to the ground blow. Alex drops his hold on Hank and takes off running for the other Vice-Captain, leaving Hank to turn his gaze back up to the sky in horror—

The massive fingers of the Gillian’s hand close around Captain Xavier in a giant fist, trapping him within the giant Hollow’s grip, and then to Hank’s complete and utter shock the Gillian retreats, pulling back into the darkness beyond the tear in the sky. Just as quickly as the tear formed, the sky knits itself back together and reseals the gap between worlds, closing entirely as if it was never even there.

Captain Xavier is gone.

 

X

 

Charles is there the first time Erik releases his Bankai, his heart so full of joy and pride he thinks it might burst, and the way Erik immediately seeks out his gaze, sending him a near-blinding grin in knowing triumph, makes it clear this is exactly how Erik felt one year ago.

It’s something that Charles holds on to, even long after Erik is gone, if only to remember what it feels like to be warm.

 

X

 

Charles picks himself up slowly from where he’s landed, his labored panting sounding unusually loud to his ears in the otherwise still silence of his surroundings.

It had taken all of his strength to blast his way out of the Gillian’s grip, his shaky control over his spirit pressure a hindrance more than ever now that he’d been thrust into combat. He’d blown its entire hand off, leaping free as the Gillian howled, pivoting in midair and bounding straight up for the Hollow’s face, rendering his final, fatal blow across the white expanse of its Hollow mask.

The resulting explosion had caught Charles head-on, blasting him backwards as the Gillian exploded in a huge burst of spiritual energy with one final howl, dying as the crack in its mask tore it to pieces. He’d hit the ground hard, and perhaps even blacked out for a few seconds because now that he’s standing again, the Hollow has disappeared entirely and he is alone.

He’s not in the Human World anymore. The Gillian has dragged him into Hueco Mundo.

Charles’ vision is fuzzy, still reeling from the explosion. An unchanging night covers the sky, while an endless white desert covers the ground, rolling dunes littered here and there with boulders stretching on into eternity in all directions. Whatever hole the Gillian used to look from this world to the Material World is gone, sealed up and closed.

He’s trapped.

It hits him like ice water being poured slowly down his spine. He has no way of contacting Sean and Alex in the Human World, and neither does he have any hope of somehow getting through to the Soul Society. He’s stuck, the only Shinigami in this entire world, his reiatsu acting as a beacon for any Hollow within hundreds of miles of him. When they sense him they’ll be on him like wolves, and even if he was at full strength there would still be no possible way for him to make it out of this place alive.

This is it, Charles realizes numbly, this is the end. He is going to die alone here, ripped to shreds by Hollows. At least there is no one waiting for him at home. At least he will not be leaving anyone behind.

In its own way, the thought is comforting.

He’s halfway up the side of a dune, staggering wearily upwards because he may as well give himself the high ground for when the Hollows come, when the pressure of the air around him increases tenfold, freezing him in his tracks.

The reiatsu is overwhelming with the depth of its power, vast and almost choking as it makes breathing difficult, drowning Charles with its near-tangible potency. It’s also utterly alien, striking him as neither belonging to Shinigami nor Hollow but something different and yet…familiar?

Heart in his throat, Charles uses the last of his failing strength to turn around and look up.

He stands high above Charles in midair, his face just as severe and chisel-cut as Charles remembers. He’s garbed in all white, with a strange, Hollow-white shell that looks to be the same material of a Hollow’s mask covering half of his head, and a perfectly round, circular hole that goes all the way through him, clear to the other side, on the left side of his chest. He is unmistakably a Hollow, a Shinigami’s worst enemy, and yet he is—

“Erik?” Charles whispers faintly, hardly daring to let himself believe, and then his strength fails at last and everything goes dark as he slips down into the inward realm of unconsciousness.


	4. Right of My Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick note for those of you who are more familiar with _Bleach_ canon: I'm not entirely sure how far I may or may not be stretching canon in this chapter, but hopefully it makes enough sense and everything else can be chalked up to artistic license for the sake of this AU, haha.
> 
> Chapter title casually lifted from chapter 226 of Tite Kubo's _Bleach_.

He wakes slowly and gradually, drifting up from the deep, inky-black darkness of sleep little by little. He’s aware of light first, soft against his eyelids, and then comes the warmth of smooth sheets and the cushioning of a pillow beneath his head. For awhile he drifts, just beneath the surface, hanging suspended in time and the strange place of half-consciousness, detached from himself at first until slowly, but surely, he wakes.

Charles opens his eyes.

Moonlight streams in through an open window, stark against the night sky. He’s lying in the center of a wide bed, carefully tucked in beneath the sheets. Aside from the bed, only a small table with two chairs stands near another window on the opposite end of the room, black curtain drawn shut over this one for now, and otherwise the room is empty: no personal effects or decorations to be seen. He sits up groggily, one hand moving up to massage his temple. His head feels thick, like it’s been stuffed with cotton, and the rest of his body is sore, though not as bad as it’d been before.

Before, when a Gillian had dragged him into Hueco Mundo.

He shoves the covers back, rolling sideways out of the bed and onto shaky feet, legs as watery and weak as those of a fawn’s standing for the first time. Less gracefully than he’d like, he stumbles to the window, placing both hands flat on the ledge for support as he takes a look outside.

Endless white sand stretches for miles and miles in all direction, the rolling dunes perpetuating out further than he can see. The sky overhead is black and empty, without a single star to dot the vast expanse, except for the moon—it hangs low and fat, its full phase engorged and streaming bright light down onto the empty wasteland below. The landscape is eerie in the half-light, strange and foreign and unlike anything Charles has ever seen before, even with the many forays he’d once taken into the Material World.

He’s standing in a tower of some kind, carved out of black, glittering rock with sheer, faultless sides that go straight down. It must be visible for miles and miles above the barren desert, judging by how high up he’s currently standing above the sand directly below. He closes his eyes for a moment and breathes.

Erik is alive.

But no, that’s not quite right. Erik is alive, but he is a Hollow—or _is_ he? Charles’ memory of what happened just before he passed out is fuzzy and garbled, due to his disorientation and fatigue after defeating the Gillian, but he does remember Erik’s face. He’d know Erik’s face anywhere, light or dark, so there’s no way he’s mistaken. He’s not forgotten it in the two achingly long centuries since the last time he physically saw Erik—it’s haunted both his dreams and nightmares ever since.

Erik is alive. Charles draws in one shaky breath that rides on the edge of a rasping sob, one fist clenching tightly shut as his entire body trembles, tensed with the effort of holding back more tiny, gasping sobs because if he starts now he’s not sure when he’ll be able to stop.

He’s not sure how long it takes for him to calm again, slowly unclenching his fist while he takes deeper breaths, wiping away the wetness at the corners of his eyes. When he opens his eyes again he feels incredibly tired, his emotions near-spent. He hasn’t even spoken to Erik yet and he’s already exhausted. He rests his forehead against the edge where the window frame meets the wall, the cool stone easing the headache that’s begun to form.

Charles straightens. Erik’s face had been visible—he’d had no Hollow mask completely concealing his features and leaving him in perpetual disguise. But he’d had what’d looked like the remnants of one, as if he’d once worn a mask but had tried his hand at ripping it off with mixed success. Charles isn’t sure what that means as far as what that makes Erik. Hollow or not-Hollow? Friend or—and his heart contracts—foe?

Friend enough, if Charles is still alive. He’d collapsed in front of Erik, out cold. Easy prey, even if Erik’s spirit pressure hadn’t felt like it was slowly crushing him. And yet here he stands, in the stronghold of a tower, tucked away in a bedroom. No one else could have brought him here. Only Erik.

Charles swallows, mouth dry. He doesn’t know what this means. He doesn’t know what’s going on, and he’s suddenly overcome with a desperate need to see Erik again, to reaffirm that it all wasn’t some wild hallucination. He wants _answers_.

He focuses, casting his awareness of reiatsu outward. As far as he can tell, the tower is empty. No one else is home, Hollow or otherwise. At least that means his own reiatsu hasn’t been sensed yet, and he’s not about to be attacked by every Hollow within a hundred miles. That, or they’re just all too afraid to approach the tower, Shinigami presence or not, because of who resides within it.

Charles turns away from the window, walking across the empty room towards the door. If no one is here, he may as well explore the place. He pauses for a moment when he passes the table and chairs—his Captain’s haori hangs neatly off the back of one of the chairs, the large number 5 for his Division carefully stitched with silky black thread. He almost reaches for it, to slip it back on, but then he opts for leaving it where it hangs. He’s no Captain. Not here.

The door opens without protest, swinging open soundlessly to admit him to a narrow, spiraling stairwell. Charles treads downward carefully, with only the thin beams of moonlight through tiny, narrow slits in the rock to light his way. He counts one hundred steps exactly before he emerges into a large hall, with towering, empty walls and a large, crystal-like chandelier that catches a single beam of moonlight from a hole in one wall and multiplies it, illuminating the place with a ghost-like glow. Charles’ footsteps echo off the stone as he walks, rebounding loudly off the walls as he makes his way slowly down the expanse of the hall, moving between thick, carved columns on either side that only serve to throw long, deep shadows.

There are multiple doorways on either side of the hall beyond the columns, and Charles only has to check the first few in order to get the just of things—each room is broad but utterly empty, just meaningless space that holds no purpose. He feels like he’s walking through ancient ruins that were abandoned centuries ago, all the artifacts long since looted and stolen away. He’d started in the tower but this is the rest of the fortress, enormous and probably dark and imposing on the outside while on the inside it is nothing but empty. A kingdom built on nothing is hardly a kingdom at all.

Is this where Erik lives? Has this been where Erik has dwelled the past two hundred years, alone in an empty fortress on an endless desert? Charles stops beside one of the columns, resting one hand against the black stone. Like the window ledge, it’s cool to the touch. Charles had been lonely enough, surrounded as he’d been by his fellows in his Division and the rest of the Gotei 13. This barren place is far closer to a waking hell.

On the edge of his senses, he picks up on a foreign source of reiatsu fast-approaching the fortress. It isn’t Erik, this he knows for certain right away, but it has the same strange quality that Charles remembers feeling before—definitely not Shinigami, but not quite Hollow either. Whatever it is, it’s strong, and drawing closer by the second.

Charles deliberates. At best he has only a few seconds more before it starts sensing him in return, and his own reiatsu signature is unmistakably Shinigami. While clearly Erik hadn’t harmed him, Charles has no way of knowing whether this new being will act in the same fashion. He is, after all, deep in enemy territory.

In the end, he stays where he is. He can tell when the other picks up on his presence, income trajectory shifting just slightly, speed picking up just a hair. Quietly, just in case, Charles summons his Zanpakutō. He doesn’t unsheathe it, letting it rest comfortably in place at his hip as soon as it materializes, but at least its hilt is within easy grasping reach.

The air shifts, and a girl alights in the center of the hall. Like Erik, she wears all white, standing out boldly against the black stone of the walls. She lands with her back to Charles, allowing him to study her wide Hollow hole, going straight through the center of her lower back and stomach, her short-cropped white jacket stopping just above the top of the perfect circle. When she pivots to face him, Charles’ eyes dart away automatically out of modesty—her jacket is left provocatively open, covering her breasts only just barely, and otherwise revealing the large tattoo of the number 21 in thick, blocky font across her chest.

“Shinigami,” she hisses, dark eyes glittering as she glares at him. She too has the remnants of a Hollow mask, hers taking form as a ridged crest starting at her forehead and propagating back over the center of the top of her head, the edges flaring out like wings. “I don’t know how you got in here, but it’s time to die, little worm.”

Charles holds up both of his empty hands. “I’m not here to fight you.”

“Then lay down and die, scum!” she snarls, red light beginning to collect into a sphere above the top of her Hollow mask fragment, growing steadily larger and larger.

A Cero, Charles realizes in surprise, just like a Gillian. Having no desire to fight her until he knows more about who and what she is, he prepares to leap out of the way, readying himself for a fast takeoff in Shunpo—

The pressure in the room increases almost painfully as a new reiatsu arrives out of nowhere, quashing the girl’s Cero out of existence to the sound of her startled gasp. Erik flickers into view beside her, tall and imposing as he looks down at her, while Charles falls still, hardly daring to breathe.

“There’s a Shinigami here!” She jabs her chin at Charles, never looking away from Erik. “I don’t know how it got in, I swear.”

“He got in because I put him here,” Erik says evenly, and that’s when Charles breathes, letting out a long, slow breath at hearing Erik’s voice again for the first time in two centuries.

“How was _I_ supposed to know?” She continues to hold Erik’s gaze mulishly. “I see a Shinigami, I’m going to kill it. I don’t stop to think, ‘oh, maybe _jefe_ invited him over for tea—’”

“Angel.” Erik stops her tirade with a pointed look. It’s the same look he once used to give brand-new Academy graduates, green and feisty and still with so much to learn; so achingly familiar that Charles can hold his silence no longer.

“Erik,” he says, the name slipping out past his lips for the first time in something beyond a nightmare or dream.

Erik turns his head to look at him, and though he is standing hardly ten paces away from Charles there is at once an entire galaxy of space between them and at the same time hardly an atom’s worth, both too much and not enough. Everything in all the worlds narrows down to just the two of them, a single point in space and time where they are together again, reunited at long last when Charles thought it would never be possible, where so much, both said and unsaid, lies between them like a chasm.

Time extends on, long seconds passing.

“Oh,” the girl, Angel, says with something like wonder crossing her face, “it’s him, isn’t it?”

“Leave us,” Erik says quietly, and this time she obeys without further question, flickering out of sight and disappearing just as quickly as she’d originally appeared, reiatsu speeding away into the distance.

“Tell me it’s really you,” Charles says, his voice centimeters away from cracking. He feels like a livewire has been strung through his bones, every nerve in his body quivering, on the edge of flying apart completely because if this isn’t real, if this is another dream, if this is a Kido spell that he’s been placed under—

“Charles,” Erik says, his name curling intimate and familiar and perfect in Erik’s rich tones, “it’s me. I’m here. You’re here. This is real.”

Somehow they stand directly in front of each other now, though Charles doesn’t remember moving at all. Erik is close enough to touch now, physically, even with the metaphorical canyon still yawning wide between them, a Hollow’s gaping maw, and so Charles reaches for him with tentative fingers, tips brushing feather-light against Erik’s smooth cheek, on the side of his face not framed by the strange fragment of a Hollow mask. He can see the detail of it now, the bone-white remnant framing half of Erik’s face, covering the right side of Erik’s head like a round, smooth helmet, arching sharply over his right brow with jagged edges running down his right cheek. At his throat is the bottom half of sharp Hollow jaws, serrated teeth circling his neck beneath the wide collar of his white jacket. He’s both familiar and foreign, but he’s still Erik, standing in front of Charles in the flesh.

“You died,” Charles whispers, voice shaking, “I killed you, you were gone and I was alone—”

Something in Erik’s face breaks, the expressionless mask splintering and something like pain sparking across his features. “I would die a thousand times by your blade,” he answers, peering into Charles’ eyes with all the same focused intensity that Charles remembers from before, “to keep you from standing where I do now.”

Charles isn’t sure what the sound that escapes him classifies as, not quite a sob but neither is it a sigh as he closes the physical distance between them at last. Erik’s arms come up to fold him against his chest as Charles buries his face in Erik’s shoulder, holding onto each other tightly as if afraid that the other will dissolve away at the slightest loosening of grip. Erik’s form is solid and corporeal and _real_ against him, and Charles can feel himself shaking again as he hangs on with all of his strength, one of Erik’s hands running slowly up and down his back soothingly, his nose brushing against Charles’ hair as the taller man breathes in.

Erik doesn’t have a heartbeat, his body still and silent, but his reiatsu is vibrant, pulsing against Charles’ with almost overwhelming vitality, after so long without feeling it. It’s like the sun breaking through the clouds at long last, bathing the previously cold, grey world in warmth and light, and painting everything in color once more. Not even the strange otherness of Erik’s not-Hollow, not-Shinigami reiatsu is off-putting enough to make Charles want to keep his distance out of wariness because he finds that he doesn’t care—Erik is _Erik_.

“I missed you,” he whispers, a few grains of sand falling into the chasm of time and distance that still lies between them, only the beginnings of filling it in, “I missed you so much.”

Erik’s grip on him only tightens, though not enough to hurt, the hand that had been rubbing him gently now fisting in the back of Charles’ kosode, drawing the fabric taut across Charles’ shoulders. He can feel Erik’s reiatsu wrapping around both of them like an invisible shroud, keeping Charles in and everything else out—communicating precisely how Erik feels without saying a word.

They stay like that for minutes or perhaps hours or even days; Charles isn’t certain, not in this strange in-between world of everlasting night, and he’s not sure that it matters anyway. They’re reluctant to let go of each other, as if afraid that everything is merely a longing vision that will crumble and fade as soon as they’re no longer holding onto each other, but finally Erik moves, relaxing his fist and gently pulling back and away, letting empty space fill in between them once more.

Charles allows it but keeps their hands linked, unwilling to sever contact entirely. “What now?” he asks, and if his voice is a little raw it’s only a direct reflection of his emotions that lie flayed open and tender for all the emotional upheaval he’s experienced.

Erik’s expression is stoic again, the lines of his face long and dark in the moonlight. “Come,” he says, drawing Charles to his side, “if I still know you half as well as I think I do, you have questions.”

“Yes,” Charles agrees, allowing himself to be led and falling into step with Erik’s long, measured strides with such easy familiarity that his heart aches all over again.

“I’ll answer what I can.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Charles.” Erik warns.

He falls quiet for a few paces, reordering his thoughts. He has what feels like hundreds of questions, his thoughts reeling in all directions because _Erik is here, Erik is alive_. “I suppose my first question is _how_?” Charles says slowly. “How are you here, how is this…possible?” His voice gets a little shaky at the end.

Erik is silent for a beat, most likely using it to gather his own thoughts as well. “You remember the night of my death.”

Charles closes his eyes for a moment, answering softly, “I’ve relived it every night since.”

Erik breathes in at that, short and aborted, though his pace otherwise does not falter. “The Hollow that attacked us that night was called Metastacia.”

“Its power was to fuse with the body of its victim,” Charles says with a nod, “I did the research later. When I could bear it.”

“When it fused with me, its presence disrupted my reiatsu,” Erik continues, giving Charles’ hand a small squeeze, “and when your Zanpakutō impaled my body, it vanquished Metastacia immediately but left my soul hanging in a form of limbo. I wasn’t a Hollow, but neither was I a Plus.”

“It didn’t know how to treat your soul,” Charles realizes, eyes widening. Before Erik’s death, a Shinigami had never before been slain by way of Zanpakutō—death gods do not kill other death gods. Zanpakutō are used solely for vanquishing Hollows or performing Konsō, the Soul Burial, on Pluses, which are little more than wayward, benign ghosts still lingering in the Material World, to send them on into Soul Society.

But Erik had been purely Shinigami when Charles had run him through with his blade, something he’d never truly considered the full consequences of beyond Erik’s death, a thought that stops him dead in his tracks now.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, the words tumbling out of his mouth in a pained rush, “you can’t imagine how many times I’ve wished to go back and change that night and I know that means very little but I’m so, so sorry—”

“Charles,” Erik says sharply, taking him by the forearms and turning him so that they face each other once again. “Breathe.”

Charles draws in rasping, shaking breaths, digging his fingers into Erik’s arms tightly, every muscle in his body gone tense.

“I don’t tell you all this to make you feel guilty,” Erik says, speaking quietly but intently, soothing while at the same time ensuring that Charles understands every word. “I _can_ imagine how many times you’ve wished to go back and change that night. I’ve wished the same thing just as many. But if you believe nothing else, at least believe this—it’s not your fault, Charles. I never blamed you. Not once.” His voice softens, imperceptive to most but not to Charles. “You don’t have to blame yourself anymore.”

Charles does sob then, finally and at long last, something inside him breaking and disintegrating away, like poison being drawn from a two-hundred-year-old wound because Erik is right, of course; he’s blamed himself all this time and held himself responsible for Erik’s death for two centuries now, and Erik’s words are forgiveness. He hadn’t known how much he’d needed to hear them, cooling balm over wounds still jagged and raw even after two centuries, because while knowing that Erik never blamed him is one thing, being able—being _allowed_ —to forgive himself is another entirely.

Erik’s laser-like attention never wavers, wiping Charles’ tears away with deft fingers. “This way.”

Charles allows himself to be led again, dazed, his legs watery and weak all over again as the tension in his muscles floods out of him completely, leaving him nearly limp in Erik’s grasp. He thought he’d felt emotionally drained before but now he feels empty, all taps exhausted as Erik opens a set of double doors and brings him out onto a wide balcony that overlooks the endless desert, carefully lifting him up with large hands around Charles’ waist to sit on the wide stone ledge of the railing.

He stays standing in front of Charles, brushing against the insides of Charles’ slightly spread legs, so Charles leans forward, at the perfect height now to rest their foreheads against one another. “Why did this have to happen to us?” he asks wearily, not entirely expecting an actual answer. He can feel the edge of Erik’s Hollow mask fragment digging in lightly against his head, not budging from its place on top of Erik’s.

Erik doesn’t say anything, merely running his hands up and down Charles’ thighs gently, the repetitive motion smooth and calming. Charles closes his eyes and breathes, deep and even, the heavy chains of guilt that have been wrapped around his heart and soul for two hundred years now falling away and leaving him light and free.

This time he’s the one to pull back first, shifting a little on the ledge so that he sits more comfortably. “I didn’t mean to distract from your explanation.”

“It was necessary,” Erik answers, watching him. His hands have come to a stop on Charles’ knees, resting on top of them lightly above the material of Charles’ black hakama.

“Thank you,” Charles tells him, for more reason than one, which Erik seems to understand because he nods once, a flicker of his old, familiar warmth visible in his eyes. “Please, continue.”

“My body was dying,” Erik says, picking his narrative back up, “but as we established, your Zanpakutō wasn’t sure what to do with my soul.”

“So it did the inverse of what it would’ve done if you were a Plus or Hollow,” Charles says, drawing lightning-quick conclusions, “instead of sending you to Soul Society, it hurled you into Hueco Mundo.”

“As far as I have ever been able to tell, yes,” Erik confirms. Now that they’re outside, the moonlight is bright enough to be like off-colored sunlight, illuminating the depths of his eyes. “It’s the only explanation that makes enough sense to account for my remanifestation here.”

“And so…” Charles hesitates, fumbling for wording. There’s no delicate way to put it, so he forges ahead. “What…what are you? Your reiatsu doesn’t feel entirely like a Hollow’s, but it doesn’t feel entirely like a Shinigami’s either. The girl from before—Angel, she felt the same.”

Erik regards him for a long moment, unblinking, and Charles has the feeling of being measured. “They call us Arrancar,” he says at last, the word rolling off his tongue, “because we are Hollows that have removed our masks.”

“Arrancar,” Charles repeats, trying the word out. It feels odd in his own voice, clunky and out-of-place where in Erik’s it was sleek and polished. “And you remanifested as an Arrancar because you were originally a Shinigami?”

“No, Charles,” Erik answers, but he’s patient, “Arrancar are Hollows that have removed their masks. Angel was never a Shinigami in the first place, and I had to have a mask first in order to remove it. I remanifested as a Hollow.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Charles admits, frowning slightly as he thinks. “Your reiatsu makes more sense now, since it’s both Hollow and Shinigami. But I don’t know how you could ever be turned fully into a Hollow.”

“What is a Jibakurei?” Erik asks expectantly, a non sequitur that makes Charles blink.

“A spirit who is not able to leave the Human World after death because he or she regrets leaving something behind,” Charles recites after a pause, “and though the process may take weeks, months, or sometimes even years, eventually they will become a Hollow unless the Soul Burial is performed— _oh_.”

“Like a Jibakurei, I left something behind that I was unwilling to let go of,” Erik says quietly, his gaze never leaving Charles’ as he confesses, “when I died, I took some of your reiatsu with me, and so when I recoalesced here, it was as a Hollow. I can only assume that the involvement of your Zanpakutō sped up the process.”

“The inverse of a Soul Burial,” Charles says faintly.

“Precisely.”

“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Charles whispers, blinking hard at the heavy sting of water welling up in his eyes again with the way his heart aches for Erik. “How did you become Arrancar?”

And just like that Erik’s face closes, visibly snapping shut. “I told you that I would answer what I can.”

“Why, can you not remember? Or—”

“Charles,” Erik says, reinforcing his words with a press of reiatsu, “leave it.”

Charles pushes back with his own reiatsu indignantly, not one to be bullied. “Fine,” he answers, “I’ll leave it. For now.”

Erik gives a small sigh, shaking his head slightly, but otherwise his hands have started their back-forth motion up and down Charles’ thighs absently, the simple touch easing the sting of his sudden reticence. Charles sits still, soaking in the touch that he’s been without for so long.

“If you were a Hollow,” he asks slowly, aiming to shift the conversation back into territory that Erik seems more willing to discuss, “how did you retain all your memories?” While normal Hollows keep their memories of their past lives at first, they gradually begin to forget everything as the mindless hunger for other souls becomes their one and only all-consuming thought.

He’s suddenly desperately glad that Erik remembers—remembers him, remembers _them_. Charles doesn’t know what he would’ve done if he and Erik had finally found each other after all this time only to have Erik regard him as a stranger. It would hurt more, his gut wrenching at the mere thought, than the pain of losing Erik in the first place.

Erik seems to follow Charles’ same line of thought, because he cups Charles’ cheek again, gentle but intent. “I had you with me all along,” he answers, the words making Charles’ heart feel as if it could beat right out of his chest, “I absorbed the reiatsu I stole from you, and carried you with me all this time. It was a constant reminder, here in this dark hell. I could never forget.” His hand slides down, curling around the back of Charles’ neck as he leans in further, his next words ghosting across Charles’ lips. “Especially not you.”

Charles draws in a shuddering, shaking breath and then they’re kissing, tentative and careful at first as their mouths slide together, the jolt of warmth at the touch spreading all the way down to Charles’ core. Their second kiss is deeper and hungrier, desperation edging in because they can have this again, this is _real_ , after so long without each other, and Charles makes a small noise as Erik’s tongue slips into his mouth, curling filthy and obscene. By their third, Charles has fisted his hands in Erik’s jacket to tug him even closer, scooting forward onto the very edge of the railing ledge and hooking his legs around Erik’s trim waist as their teeth scrape and tongues slide together and he feels _whole_.

He tilts his head back, panting, when Erik starts to work his way down his throat, sucking hard right at Charles’ pulse point until Charles is practically seeing stars in the black night sky. “Please, Erik,” he says, dazed, because it’s been _so long_ that he can’t even put into words the sheer amount of emotions coursing through him like rolling thunder, “please, I need—”

“I need you,” Erik murmurs against his skin when Charles’ voice cuts out, lifting his head to claim Charles’ lips again, feverish with arousal and pure, unrefined lust, “stop me now, Charles, ask me to stop, or I won’t be able—”

“ _No_ ,” Charles answers, interrupting him mid-sentence because they have waited too long for this and nothing else matters, “don’t stop.” He kisses Erik again, their reiatsu crackling like lightning before an oncoming storm, one that’s been building up and up and up, gathering in intensity and ferocity and now finally ready to break and level everything in its path, tearing the foundations of the world asunder, “Do. Not. Stop.”

 

X

 

There’s a considerable assembly waiting for them when they step back through the dimensional gateway from the Material World into Soul Society. At first Alex is relieved, because it must mean that they saw what happened to Captain Xavier, but then he realizes who exactly is waiting for them.

Captain Azazel of the Second Division stands at the head of a full squad of his Onmitsukidō guards, eyes hard as he watches them step out of the gateway. Armando stands a little off to the side, face strained, and when Alex catches his eye in question he gives a slight shake of his head.

“You’re late,” Captain Azazel says as the portal closes behind them, “we were beginning to assume that you defected as well.” His gaze flicks to Hank. “Is this Hank McCoy?”

“Captain Xavier is gone,” Sean blurts, still wild-eyed from the Hollow attack, “he’s been abducted by a Gillian!”

“It came out of the sky,” Alex says, speaking to Armando rather than the Second Division Captain, “and Captain Xavier moved to engage it, with Sean—Vice-Captain Cassidy as his backup. But it just _grabbed_ Captain Xavier and left.” He swallows. “We couldn’t do a thing.”

“Gillians do not think, let alone carry out abductions,” Azazel says, red tail flicking slowly back and forth, “if you want to fabricate a story, at least come up with something believable. It sounds to me like Xavier’s finally cracked and deserted.”

“We’re not lying,” Sean snaps angrily in defense of his Captain, hand flying to the hilt of his Zanpakutō.

“I would think very carefully before you draw that blade, Vice-Captain,” Azazel says softly, resting one finger on the hilt of his own Zanpakutō. Behind him, the ninja squad tenses, ready to leap into action, and Alex can see a bloodbath waiting to happen.

“Sean, don’t.” He grabs his friend by the arm, pulling Sean’s hand away from his blade.

“I think it would be best if we heard the full story of events,” Armando says smoothly, stepping forward, “before any judgments are passed. Regardless of the circumstances, a Gotei 13 Captain is missing. The Captain-Commander must be notified immediately.”

Azazel’s eyes stay narrowed, but he too moves his hand away from his sword. “Take the prisoner away,” he orders, instead of answering, “lock him in the Senzaikyū. Captain Muñoz and I will escort the two Vice-Captains to First Division for further questioning.”

“The Senzaikyū?” Alex demands before he can stop himself. Even Hank, who has been quiet and distant ever since Alex and Sean dragged him away from his human friend, looks up in shock as the Onmitsukidō guards move forward to surround him. “But that’s where only prisoners who’re sentenced to execution stay.”

“The ruling came down from the Central 46 while you were gone,” Azazel answers, eyes glinting, “Hank McCoy is hereby sentenced to die by execution for high treason against the Seireitei.”


	5. The Lust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely **RavenDoom** has drawn bb!AcademyEra!Erik [here](http://ravendoom.tumblr.com/post/72871678041)!
> 
> Chapter title casually lifted from chapter 347 of Tite Kubo's _Bleach_.

Erik’s kisses are voracious, hungry and all-consuming, an edge to them now that Charles doesn’t remember from before with something like desperation leaking through. It’s all Charles can do to hold on, hands twisted in the fabric of Erik’s white jacket as the Arrancar bears him down onto the bed he’d woken up in earlier, meeting Erik kiss for kiss even while his head spins, unsure whether or not to keep up his fight to stay afloat on the wild rush of his reiatsu surging forward to twine with Erik’s—because this at least, even now despite Erik’s new form, is still the same.

“You taste,” Erik murmurs in between kisses, a low growl against Charles’ skin that sends curling waves of heat down Charles’ spine as he twists restlessly beneath him, “I missed—”

Charles makes a low sound in the back of his throat as Erik’s hands slide down the inside of his thighs, parting his legs so Erik can move in between them, his real and solid weight settling over Charles and pinning him down against the sheets. Charles can’t seem to stay still, running his hands up and down Erik’s sides and tracing his fingers across the planes of Erik’s back, touching and feeling every last centimeter of Erik that he can reach to reaffirm over and over again that this is real, Erik is real, Erik is alive.

“Shh,” Erik breathes when Charles draws in a shaky breath without meaning to, the raw edge of a sob, “just let me. Let me.”

He moves down to mouth at Charles’ throat, every brush of his lips leaving a burning trail across Charles’ skin. One of his hands gets to work at slowly tugging Charles’ clothes open, long fingers sliding beneath black fabric to trace a burning path up Charles’ skin, thumb swiping gently over his ribs and making him shiver. Erik’s other hand snakes down to Charles’ crotch, feeling the growing hardness of Charles’ cock and massaging him there, squeezing him gently as Charles cants his hips up into the sensation, eyes fluttering shut with a soft moan.

The room is quiet, even with the window open to let the bright, stark moonlight pool across the floor and bed, their breathing seeming abnormally loud in the silence. Charles can’t help the occasional sigh or whimper that escapes past his lips as Erik methodically undresses him, reintroducing himself to each inch of newly revealed skin with his lips, the feeling at once both too much and not enough. Between the attention Erik pays him with his mouth and the constant rub of his hand between Charles’ legs, coaxing his cock to fill entirely and leak sticky wetness against black fabric beneath Erik’s fingers, Charles is overwhelmed by the sensation of touch—he hasn’t felt anything like this since the last time he and Erik had been in bed together, two hundred years ago.

“Erik,” he pants, eyes opening wide again, glassy pools that stare helplessly up at the ceiling while his hands drop to fist in the sheets, chest heaving, “I can’t—I haven’t—”

“I’m sorry,” Erik says, murmuring the words right against Charles’ belly. He too sounds ragged and already wrecked, not unaffected either as he tilts his head up to look at Charles, slightly dazed. “It’s you and I—I can’t—”

Charles swallows, some of the haze clearing. He can feel himself flushing, starting in his cheeks and running down his neck and chest. “I’m, it’s just—there hasn’t been anyone. Not since you,” he whispers, lifting his arms to reach for Erik again. “It’s been a long time. And it’s _you_.”

Erik comes willingly, ranging back up over Charles and kissing him while Charles cradles his head with both hands, one resting in Erik’s hair while the other spreads across the Hollow mask fragment. “Charles,” he says, pulling back only slightly to rest their foreheads together, so that they breathe in each other’s space, “I—”

“I’m still not asking you to stop,” Charles interrupts him softly, whispering the words right against Erik’s lips, “I just wanted you to know—I couldn’t want anyone else, not after you.”

He feels it up and down his body when Erik lets out a low growl, rocking his hips up again with a muffled gasp as Erik’s hand resumes fondling him through his clothes with renewed purpose, pressing down and squeezing just right until Charles is moaning again, hands scrabbling to get to work at last on Erik’s jacket, fingers clumsy with the unfamiliar cloth. Erik has lit a fire beneath his skin, boiling and searing hot and leaving him feeling as if he’ll outright combust if he lies still any longer.

Together they manage to get each other undressed completely and then there’s nothing between them any more, groaning in unison at the smooth glide of skin-on-skin. Charles sees stars for a moment at the first brush of Erik’s cock against his, the smear of precome warm and tacky on his stomach. Erik’s broad hands settle on his hips, holding him down in place as he ruts against Charles for a few long, deliriously hot moments, as if physically incapable of restraining himself from doing so, just as Charles is unable to keep in the breathy gasps that fall from his lips with every thrust, mesmerized by the sight of Erik’s long cock dragging against his belly, back and forth, while the rest of him aches with need.

Erik jerks to a halt, regaining some control over himself even as he pants, something wild and feral in his eyes as he gazes down at Charles in the half-light of the moon. Charles shudders, his open mouth working but no sound falling out as he pleads voicelessly, unable to form words.

He has half a second longer to see the way Erik’s eyes glint before he’s manhandled over onto his stomach, one hand slipping beneath him to press flat-palmed against his sternum to lift him up. Erik nudges him into position so that Charles is on his hands and knees, legs slightly spread and his cock hanging thick and heavy down between them.

Erik runs one hand all the way down along the ridges of Charles’ spine, fingers ghosting across Charles’ ass. Charles realizes Erik’s intentions a second before he feels two thumbs press against his flesh and slowly part his ass cheeks, exposing him completely and making him draw in a jagged breath. “I don’t want to hurt you,” Erik says, his voice a mere puff of air over Charles’ hole, “but I need you to open up for me, darling.”

Charles isn’t sure what kind of sound he makes at the first lave of Erik’s tongue across his hole, everything in his universe narrowing down to the single point of contact between his most intimate spot and the warm wetness of Erik’s tongue as he licks Charles open. Charles jerks forward automatically, his cock twitching, but then Erik’s hands slide up to grip him by the hips again to hold him mercilessly in place as Erik continues his ministrations, tracing the rim of Charles’ hole before lapping his way inside, pushing in carefully past the ring of muscle to probe deeper.

“ _Erik_ —” It’s the only coherent word Charles can get out, the rest dissolving into wordless cries as Erik’s tongue moves inside him, hips juddering, torn between the want to escape the strange, foreign intrusion and the need to press further back for _more_.

The Arrancar lets him rock back and forth but otherwise doesn’t allow him to twist away out of shame and escape his grip, continuing to lick at Charles relentlessly, getting him slick and wet with spit and slowly but surely loosening him, working him open and preparing him for what is surely to follow. Charles’ back arches, arms and legs trembling with the effort of keeping himself up and fighting the urge to close his legs, Erik’s warm hands burning brands against his hips, and it’s _touch_ , again, that overwhelms him, after having gone so long without and now—

“Please,” he gasps out, and then sobs as Erik’s tongue twists again inside him, “Erik, _Erik_ —”

Erik withdraws at once, tongue sliding out of Charles’ hole in a wet drag that makes Charles moan reflexively at the sudden loss despite himself, feeling himself clench down on emptiness. Erik’s grip on Charles’ hips becomes loose and lax as he sits up, thumbs tracing calming circles around Charles’ hipbones before he gently pulls Charles back, guiding the Shinigami to sit in his lap.

Charles leans back against him and turns his head sideways, burying his face in the side of Erik’s neck, avoiding the Hollow teeth as best as he can and just breathes, inhaling and exhaling while Erik runs one hand slowly up and down his chest soothingly, his folded legs on either side of Charles serving to hold him comfortingly. His cock is still hard, standing up at full attention against his stomach and he can feel Erik’s heated length pressing against the back of his ass, so it’s not that he’s not enjoying this, with his body still fully on board; he just needs time to process it.

“I’ve got you,” Erik murmurs, understanding without need for explanation as he presses his lips against Charles’ hair, “I’m here.”

“Touch me,” Charles answers when he feels less like his mind is about to shatter into pieces and more again like his cock still aches for a much-needed release, “make me feel it.”

Erik hums, his chest vibrating against Charles’ back, and then he carefully maneuvers Charles once again, this time splaying him out on his back again, putting him on display against the sheets. He lets Erik arrange him the way Erik wants, focusing instead on the low, simmering heat building slowly at the base of his spine as his arousal solidifies once more, watching Erik and committing every last thing about him to memory, still not entirely trusting that this is truly real.

It will be a long time, he thinks, before this stops feeling like a dream.

He lets out a sigh of breath as Erik drags a hand down his chest, tracing a finger once around his navel to make the muscles in Charles’ stomach jump before continuing down to wrap around his cock, giving him a few short strokes, teasing Charles’ slit with a thumb until Charles is panting again, legs falling open even wider of their own accord. Erik’s other hand fumbles with something amongst the sheets and then a moment later Charles feels one finger, wet with slick, running slowly around the outer rim of his hole, allowing him a few moments of adjustment to the touch before the digit slips inside him.

“Just a little more,” Erik says when Charles makes a sound of protest that quickly dissolves into a whimper when Erik’s finger slides in deep and finds that specific bundle of nerves.

It isn’t long before Erik has a second finger inside him and Charles is fucking himself on Erik’s hand, jerking his hips up as Erik’s fingers scissor, stretching him and pressing against his prostate until he’s babbling. He’s so close to release but it still isn’t enough, not even with Erik’s other hand still wrapped around his cock and Erik’s lips against his.

“Fuck me,” Charles gasps out, “please, Erik, _fuck_ me.”

Erik pulls his fingers out and slides his other hand up Charles’ cock in one last sticky glide. “I’ve got you,” he says, reaffirmation once again though Charles doesn’t know who it’s meant to comfort the most, and then he’s gently folding Charles’ legs up against his chest, pushing his cock up against Charles’ hole, lining them up before slowly starting to sink down.

Charles moans as the hot, hard length of Erik’s cock finally fills him, gripping Erik’s forearms tightly when Erik braces his hands on the bed on either side of Charles’ shoulders. He feels himself being stretched even wider than Erik’s tongue or fingers had managed, but he’s loose and slick enough now after all of Erik’s careful work for nothing to hurt beyond the initial burn of mechanisms made unfamiliar by long passage of time. Erik’s weight pins him down against the bed so all Charles can do is lie still, mouth falling open again wordlessly as the Arrancar pushes himself all the way in and in and in.

“ _Charles_ ,” Erik breathes out in a sigh, his entire body taut and tense with the effort of remaining still, letting Charles adjust to the feeling.

“Move,” Charles answers, breath stuttering as he arches his back, pressing up against Erik to drive his point home, “don’t stop now, don’t stop, I want you—”

With a growl Erik pulls back and then snaps his hips forward, sending a white-hot spark of pleasure shooting straight up Charles’ spine. He does it again, fucking into Charles as Charles moves counterpoint against him, his grip on Erik going knuckle-white. The fire beneath his skin has become an inferno, consuming him completely as Erik fucks him into the mattress, thrusting into him continuously as a litany of small sounds escape Charles’ lips with every jerk of their bodies.

He closes his eyes, unable to bear the sensory overload. Erik’s cock nails his prostate every time Erik rolls his hips forward, making sparks dance across the inside of Charles’ eyelids. The burn of the stretch has gone away and now all he feels is pleasure, pure and unrefined, the searing heat in his belly expanding outward as Erik fucks him, their reiatsu tangling and mixing until Charles can’t tell either of them apart.

This is where they belong, this is where they’ve _always_ belonged; every fiber of Charles aligning with every fiber of Erik, locking together and completing each other, making each other whole.  He can feel wetness in his eyes, the tears leaking out a little to catch on his lashes, but Erik doesn’t stop, even as he lifts one shaky hand to deftly wipe them away.

Erik’s pace picks up, his cock plunging into Charles almost brutally fast but Charles relishes the feeling, shifting his legs so he can wrap them around Erik’s trim waist, ankles linking at the small of Erik’s back so he can pull the Arrancar down and even closer into himself, driving Erik’s thrusts into his body deeper and deeper. Charles’ cock is trapped between them, leaking freely, and he can feel his orgasm building, gathering like clouds growing taller and taller in an oncoming storm.

He can feel himself beginning to tense up, a full-length shudder running through his body as he nears the edge of release. Erik hasn’t slowed, as if determined to fuck him until their bodies are one too, melding them together with sex and heat so that they can never be separated again now that they’re reunited at last. Together.

Charles’ eyes fly open when he comes, a ragged cry tearing its way loose as he coats both of their stomachs and chests with sticky white come, clenching down on the cock in his ass. Erik fucks him through it, and Charles whites out for a moment at the shockwaves of intense pleasure, swept away on the tidal wave of orgasm, his grip on Erik’s forearms failing as his body goes limp with overexertion and fatigue.

Erik doesn’t last much longer, burying himself in Charles at last as deep as he can before coming with a low groan, and Charles shivers at the feeling of being filled with come. Erik half-collapses down on top of him, panting raggedly as he presses his face into Charles’ shoulder.

For awhile they lie still, catching their breath and slowly drifting back down from the euphoric high of lust-fueled sex, making no move to separate. Charles can feel Erik softening in him but he’s glad that the Arrancar makes no move to pull out, even when Charles lets his legs slip back down to the bed, keeping his knees bent and planting his feet flat on the sheets so that he still brackets Erik in on top of himself.

He’s exhausted, physically and emotionally, and he hasn’t felt this fucked-out in two centuries, but yet at the same time Charles feels utterly content, something finally clicking back into place inside him. It’s no mystery why. He’d been missing a piece of himself until now.

He lifts one watery-weak arm wearily to run his fingers through Erik’s hair on the side of his head not covered by the Hollow mask fragment. At length, Erik lifts his head to nuzzle at Charles, kissing him slow and sweet. Charles lets his eyes drift closed, kissing Erik back unhurriedly—this time, neither of them are going anywhere.

They could pass an entire lifetime like this, seeping back into the cracks and crevices of each other where they belong.

After a blissful eon of just that, Erik carefully sits up, gingerly pulling out of Charles as gently as he can. Charles only winces a little, sensitive and sore in the best of ways, and he can’t resist a small shiver when he feels come leaking out of his ass now that Erik’s cock has slid out of him. He feels the loss of Erik on top of him at once, cool air washing over him where Erik’s body covered him before, the come on his stomach and chest already beginning to dry.

“Where are you going?” Charles asks, unable to keep a note of uncertainty from entering his otherwise raw, raspy voice as he regards Erik through eyes that are barely able to stay open.

Erik pauses from where he’s risen from the bed, and reaches back over to rub the ankle bone of one of Charles’ lazily sprawled legs. “To get something to clean you up. I’ll be right back.” The expression in his eyes alone speaks the promise for him.

There are a thousand things Charles could say to that but he settles for a small nod, unwilling to voice any of the irrational fears that have suddenly, reflexively, swamped him. He doesn’t have to worry long—true to his word, Erik blinks in and out of view, returning within a second to climb back up onto the bed next to Charles with a warm, damp cloth that he uses to wipe away the worst of the stickiness on both of them.

Charles doesn’t even realize that his entire body was tense until Erik drops the cloth off the side of the bed and gracefully crawls back over to him.

“I’m here,” Erik says quietly as he splays himself out on his side next to Charles, pulling him close. He pulls the sheets over them, making sure they’re well-covered. “I’ve got you.”

Charles shifts onto his side to face him, pressing himself up against Erik so that their skin is in contact from shoulder to groin, tucking his head under Erik’s chin and tangling their legs together, one of Erik’s over both of his own. “Don’t leave me ever again,” he whispers, and it comes out harsh and gritty, every ounce of pain and heartbreak he’s endured for two hundred years poured into five words that leave his body like a poison being drained away at last.

Erik drops an arm behind Charles’ back, holding the Shinigami to him, and though his answer comes calmly, there is no mistaking the cold fury that lies beneath. “Never.”

 

X

 

“He shattered your source of power. You have no Soul Reaper powers left.”

Raven doesn’t answer. She doesn’t look up from the lacquered wood of the table, legs crossed tightly on the seat cushion beneath her.

“You’re lucky you’re still in one piece. Any other Captain wouldn’t even have left a single trace of you.”

There’s a bowl of noodles in front of her, still steaming, but Raven hasn’t touched them. Her body aches, the bandages wrapped tightly around her torso doing little to keep her insides from feeling as if they’ve been liquefied by a blender, but that isn’t what keeps her silent.

She’s thinking, mind racing.

“So what are you going to do? Your friend Hank has been set to be executed. Will you leave him to his fate? It’s because he helped you. This wouldn’t be happening if not for—”

Raven slams a fist down on the table, making the cutlery rattle. She looks up, bearing her teeth in a fierce grin. “Shut up already. You talk too much, I’m so bored I can barely think straight.” She lifts her hand and jabs one finger forward. “Help me get my power back. I’m sure you know a way, or otherwise you wouldn’t have healed me, am I right? And then I need to train, because I’m going on a field trip.”

A smile, razor-sharp and not unlike the satisfaction of a contented cat. “If you insist.”

 

X

 

Charles dozes, drifting in and out of consciousness. Through his reiatsu, which still tangles lazily with Erik’s strange Hollow-and-Shinigami mix, he’s subconsciously aware that Erik doesn’t fall asleep once, seemingly content with watching over Charles and making sure that their bodies stay pressed close.

When Charles gradually awakens fully, he finds that they’ve separated by a few inches, still lying on their sides facing each other. Erik watches him solemnly, unblinking. The Hollow mask fragment throws a shadow across his face but Charles’ eyes have adjusted to the odd lighting of Hueco Mundo, and he can read Erik’s grave expression clear as daylight.

“Don’t say it,” he says before Erik can open his mouth. His voice is soft in the quiet of the room, no longer as hoarse as he’d been earlier.

Erik’s gaze shutters, but after a pause he slides one arm up the bedspread between them with a soft rustle of fabric, reaching out to rest his knuckles deftly against Charles’ cheek, brushing his thumb against the soft skin. “What happened to your reiatsu,” he asks instead, obeying for now.

Self-consciously, Charles withdraws his reiatsu reflexively at the question, a reaction that’s become automatic in the face of anyone noticing his damaged reiatsu. Erik hardly bats an eye but suddenly his reiatsu clamps down on Charles’ and holds it in place, turning sharp like saw grass in the wrong direction. Charles stills warily, holding his spirit pressure in place as Erik’s feels along the frayed, tattered edges.

“It was me,” Erik murmurs, not a question but a statement. “The reiatsu I absorbed from you. I ripped it from you first.”

“It’s partially my fault,” Charles answers, “I didn’t want to let go.”

“Nevertheless,” Erik replies, loosening his grip on Charles’ spirit pressure again, his inspection over, “I am sorry.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Charles says softly. Instead of withdrawing his reiatsu back into himself now that he’s been given an out, he tentatively twines it with Erik’s again, settling back into comforting familiarity. Erik hesitates only a moment before reciprocating, allowing them to re-forge their link; easy as breathing.

“I want you more than words can describe,” Erik says suddenly in a low, guttural growl that goes straight to Charles’ cock, stirring with interest. He lets out a shaky breath as Erik shifts closer, all predatory intent.

His breath catches in his throat when Erik’s hand closes around his cock, stroking him to full hardness with three easy pulls. His palm is rough with sword calluses, and the drag of them on Charles’ cock makes him grit his teeth against the pleasure-pain, a low whine escaping him as he rocks his hips forward, fucking into Erik’s hand.

“Just like that,” Erik says, his eyes on Charles’ face. He keeps up his steady rhythm, squeezing just enough for the perfect amount of friction. Still on his side, he slides one leg between Charles’ and shifts himself forward until their chests brush. “Come on, darling—”

Charles groans when Erik pushes his own cock into the warm, sticky channel created by his hand, fisting both of their cocks simultaneously. Erik thrusts into the makeshift hole, rubbing their cocks together and smearing a mix of their precome all over both of them and his fingers. Charles is helpless to resist and matches Erik’s thrusts, a molten curl of heat growing in the pit of his stomach as his hands scrabble at Erik’s shoulders and back. Their reiatsu knots, clenching around each other tightly as they chase release, unhurried but not without a small sense of purpose.

Erik kisses him when they both come, neither of them lasting long as they coat the inside of Erik’s hand with white. Charles shakes apart against the Arrancar and then rolls over onto his back, boneless and sated, panting as he attempts to regain his bearings.

“What,” he asks breathlessly, “what brought that on?”

“Did you not enjoy it?” Erik rumbles. He twists to the side to wipe his hand clean on the sheets. Without giving Charles time to form a reply, he rolls over on top of him, not crushing him but pointedly holding him down in place, their faces inches apart. “Tell me, what defines a Hollow.”

“Erik,” Charles says warningly, jolted back down from the pleasant drift of post-orgasm by Erik’s serious tone.

“Hunger,” Erik answers for him. He’s peering down intently into Charles’ eyes, and Charles finds himself unable to look away. “Endless, insatiable hunger.”

“I told you,” Charles says, and distantly he’s surprised by how cold his voice has gotten, “don’t say it.”

“Do you know what it’s like, to live with that hunger,” Erik pushes on relentlessly, unforgiving as he drives his point home. “There were so many times when I came so close to losing my mind. I am a Hollow—”

“An Arrancar—”

“A _Hollow_ ,” Erik overrides him, mouth beginning to curl into a snarl, “and do you know how tempting you are, a lone Shinigami with Captain-level reiatsu—”

“I don’t _care_ ,” Charles snaps vehemently, cutting him off again. He flexes once, pushing Erik off of himself and rolling them both over until Erik’s the one on his back. He sits up, straddling Erik’s waist with both palms pressed flat against his chest to make it clear that Erik is to stay still. “I don’t care what you are or what I am. It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” Erik scoffs. His hands settle on Charles’ waist, gripping his hips but otherwise making no move to throw him off. “I could—”

“Eat me?” Charles leans forward. “Are you going to, Erik? Suck out the rest of my reiatsu and devour me whole?”

Erik stares at him for another long moment and then one of his hands slides off of Charles’ hip, dropping over his face to cover his eyes. “No. No.”

“That’s why it doesn’t matter,” Charles says, his anger cooling. His reiatsu ripples across Erik’s soothingly, unafraid. “I don’t care that you’re a Hollow or Arrancar or whatever sort of monster you think you are. To me, you’re Erik.” He touches Erik’s arm, feather-light. “I’ve already lost you once. I will not again.”

Erik doesn’t remove his arm, but the hand that still rests on Charles’ other hip massages him gently, warm on his skin. “Other Hollows won’t be so lenient.”

“I don’t think any of them are brave enough to approach this fortress,” Charles answers, sitting back a little, “I think they’re all afraid of something. Or some _one_.”

“How did you come to be in Hueco Mundo in the first place?” Erik asks abruptly, letting his arm slide off his face to the side so he can watch Charles again.

“A Gillian.” Charles frowns faintly. “I was in the Material World on assignment. A Gillian-class came out of the sky, so my Vice-Captain and I moved to engage it. It batted him aside on purpose and grabbed me. By the time I broke free it had already retreated back into Hueco Mundo. It’s almost like it was...thinking. Acting on orders.” He regards Erik. “Did you send it?”

“No,” Erik says tightly, “I did not.”

Charles considers. “You know who did.”

“No,” Erik answers, looking away, “I don’t.”

“Erik.”

The grip on his hip tightens in warning. “Remember when I said that I’ll answer only what I can.”

Charles narrows his eyes. “I’m trapped in Hueco Mundo and you’re not going to tell me what you know about how I might’ve gotten here in the first place.”

Erik’s grip loosens and strokes him lightly all the way up his side, making him give an involuntary shiver. “Is the company worth it, at least?”

“You know it’s more than,” Charles whispers, gazing down at him. He’s hyperaware now of the solid form beneath him, Erik in the flesh. This is real. He and Erik are together again. “This isn’t going to distract me every time.”

“It’s worth a try to count how many times it does,” Erik murmurs, eyes half-lidded lazily. He shifts beneath Charles, stretching, no doubt making sure Charles feels every flex of muscle between his thighs, where he sits atop all that idly contained strength and power.

Charles’ gaze drifts to Erik’s Hollow hole, perfectly round and situated on the left side of Erik’s chest. He can see the bed sheets that Erik lies on top of at the other end of it. “May I?”

At Erik’s silent nod, Charles carefully traces one finger around the edge of the hole, feeling for differences in Erik’s skin. There’s no wound, no rough edges of scarring. The edges of the circle are sharp, so fine that Charles finds he can’t actually see them when he tries. He doesn’t try to feel the inside of the hole, but the walls are smooth and black all the way around.

“Does it hurt?” His voice seems loud in the quiet.

“No,” Erik answers, still and unblinking, “it doesn’t feel like anything at all.”

Charles withdraws his hand slowly, looking up at him again. “And what does this feel like?” He pushes himself backwards, sliding down Erik’s body until his ass rests over Erik’s cock.

“Like a tease,” Erik growls, but in clear challenge he doesn’t move, watching and waiting.

“And this?” Charles grinds down, rotating his hips. When Erik hisses, he does it again, right against the already growing hardness he can feel beneath his ass. They’re like teenagers all over again, he thinks somewhat wildly, insatiable when it comes to each other. He continues to rub his ass against Erik, rocking over him languidly and enjoying the slower build of his own arousal. His cock rests on Erik’s flat stomach, gradually becoming turgid. He relishes how his nipples harden in the cool air, growing taut and tight on his chest.

Erik’s next growl threatens to evolve into a full snarl when his patience gives out, his hands flying up to grip Charles’ hips again and hold him down in place as he snaps his hips up to rut against Charles. The thick head of his cock catches on the rim of Charles’ hole and Charles throws back his head with a moan. He’s still open and loose from before, wet with Erik’s come and the slick Erik had used to prep him. It’s filthily good.

“And this?” he manages to get out, Erik’s motions jostling him. He bends over to hold onto Erik’s shoulders, undulating his hips backwards to continue rubbing against Erik’s cock.

“Fuck,” Erik snarls, and on his next thrust his cock catches on Charles’ hole again but this time he follows through, pushing up until the head pops past that initial ring of muscle, impaling Charles with just the tip.

Charles gasps raggedly, trembling where he half-sits above Erik. “T-that’s the idea, love.” He swallows, controlling himself, and then pushes himself backwards and sinks down fully onto Erik’s cock. He groans at the stretch, fingers digging into Erik’s shoulders as he seats himself fully, sheathing Erik to the root. “How does this feel?”

“Charles,” Erik grits out, his body one long line of tension beneath him, “move—”

“Tell me how it feels,” Charles breathes, lifting himself up before dropping down and clenching, drawing out a strangled moan from the Arrancar, and yet another when he does it again.

He works himself on Erik’s cock, moving up and down from root to tip as he rides Erik, rubbing his own hard, leaking cock against Erik’s stomach, leaving a long trail of precome to drag through. Erik’s hands have clasped down on Charles’ hips as he writhes beneath him, jerking up in time with each of Charles’ downward thrusts and making Charles nearly go cross-eyed with every press directly against his prostate.

“How does it feel,” Charles repeats feverishly, the words little more than gasps as he fucks himself, thighs shaking with every lift, “how does—it feel—”

“Charles,” Erik groans, so far gone that it’s the only word he seems to be able to repeat, “Charles, Charles, _Charles_ —”

Charles’ back arches when he comes, shooting off across Erik’s stomach and chest with a long, wordless cry, and Erik follows shortly after, slamming Charles down on his cock and holding him there as he orgasms. Charles squirms a little at the sensation of hot come coating his insides, filling him to the brim, but otherwise he doesn’t fight it, collapsing forward to press his forehead against Erik’s chest in a spot of skin not splattered with sticky whiteness and going blissfully limp against the solid form beneath him.

“How did it feel?” Charles asks one last time, trying to catch his breath again.

Erik doesn’t answer at first, but his silence is thoughtful. Their breathing has mostly evened out when his hands slide up Charles’ sweaty sides to rest on his back, holding him close. “Home,” he says in a soft sigh, knowing that Charles already knows the answer, “it felt like home.”


	6. Falta de Armonía

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note for those of you who are unfamiliar with _Bleach_ \- throughout the entire series, Kubo has always used a Spanish motif for Hollows and Arrancar. That being said, thanks to **MonstrousRegiment** for brushing up some of my Spanish for me; any mistakes that remain are my own fault as my Spanish is embarrassingly rusty. :')
> 
> The lovely **Atelier-Dayz** sent me [a postcard of Arrancar!Erik and Captain!Charles](http://pangeasplits.tumblr.com/post/75121197592/arrancar-erik-and-shinigami-captain-charles-by), and a mysterious **anon** has done an awesome manip of Arrancar!Erik [here](http://pangeasplits.tumblr.com/post/76884612796/hi-there-i-was-rereading-your-story-hollowed). :D
> 
> Chapter title casually lifted from chapter 379 of Tite Kubo's _Bleach_.

Charles doesn’t notice it until they’re both dressing, hours later after he’s slept some more under Erik’s watchful eye; finally able to relax enough to do so, secure in the knowledge that Erik would still be there when he woke again. Erik hasn’t slept—and how could anyone, as a Hollow whose entire being is hardwired to feel nothing but endless hunger?—but he hadn’t moved from the bed either, holding Charles while the Shinigami finally gave into his exhaustion.

It had been blissful, to slowly drift awake in Erik’s arms for the first time in over two hundred years.

They’re halfway dressed, standing close enough together beside the bed so that they occasionally brush against each other with their respective motions, when Charles’ eyes catch on a shadow darker than the rest on Erik’s right bicep, brought into view by pure chance when Erik has to reach with the arm across his torso to secure the black sash at his waist.

Charles pauses where he’s fumbling with his own ties that belong to his hakama, and reaches forward to arrest Erik’s movement with one deft touch. Erik falls utterly still at once when he notices where Charles’ attention has focused, allowing the Shinigami to rotate his arm gently as to where the tattoo inked on his skin is fully visible.

“Two,” Charles says aloud, tracing the number with the pad of one finger. He probably should have noticed the mark sooner than now but he’d been rather…distracted…in general. “The girl—Angel, had a number just like this.”

“Twenty-one,” Erik says, lips barely moving.

Charles looks up at him. “What do they mean?”

For a moment Charles fully expects Erik to feed him the same line of only answering what he can as Erik visibly hesitates, so he’s pleasantly surprised when the Arrancar finally answers, “The numbers are the order of our birth.”

“So you were the second Arrancar ever born?”

“Created,” Erik says carefully with a slight nod. “Angel is the twenty-first.”

“I see,” Charles says, slowly withdrawing his hand. Erik’s still watching him, with the air of weary expectation, so he asks the first question that immediately comes to mind. “If Arrancar are created, then who is the crea _tor_?”

“Remember what I’ve said,” Erik murmurs, reaching down to take Charles’ loose hakama ties and knotting them precisely, fingers brushing against Charles’ belly. The action feels oddly more intimate than any number of the things they’ve done previously, most of which involved the _un_ doing and absence of Charles’ clothing.

Charles has to take a breath before responding, Erik’s warm hands hovering directly over his lower stomach dampening his exasperation. “Are you _ever_ going to be able to tell me?”

“Yes,” Erik says seriously, meeting his gaze unflinchingly.

“You’re going to have to sooner or later,” Charles continues, not entirely convinced. “I’m trapped down here. I need to know everything, anything to give me the slightest advantage for surviving. Erik, it’s _me_. I don’t understand the secrecy when—”

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” Erik interrupts him, cold iron bracing every word as he cups Charles’ cheek, “not without my say.”

Charles relaxes into the touch automatically, closing his eyes to let out a soft sigh. He _is_ comforted by Erik’s words, without any doubt, his trust in Erik unshakeable. “As a Shinigami I am deep in enemy territory and besides my own exhaustible power, you are my one line of defense,” he says, opening his eyes again, “don’t keep me in the dark for too long.”

“I won’t.” Erik’s solemn face is answer enough.

“I know,” Charles says softly. Maybe he should be firmer; maybe he should press the issue more. It’s not as if it’s something inconsequential and unimportant. But Charles finds that for now, he can wait. Erik has promised to tell him. That’s good enough.

They stare at each other for a moment longer through the moonlight, the depth of their understanding of one another brought about by long years of intimacy that not even two centuries of separation can erase, before Erik brushes Charles’ cheek gently one last time before pulling his hand away. They resume dressing in companionable silence, Charles reaching up to smooth down the shoulders of Erik’s jacket after the Arrancar has slipped it back on.

Their dynamic has not changed, despite their vastly different positions—admittedly more so on Erik’s end, but Charles knows that he too has changed as well, if not as drastically. No matter what, they still work, he thinks, the thought bringing on a bone-deep relief that lifts any final weight of trepidation that may have lingered within the depths of his psyche. It doesn’t matter that he is a Shinigami and Erik is a Hollow.

A Hollow’s hole is said to represent the lack of a heart that is difficult to fill, hence the endless hunger that drives Hollows to consume any living soul that they can reach in a mindless, futile attempt to regain what has been lost. The hole can manifest anywhere on the Hollow’s body, and can sometimes be an indicator—Charles can guess why Erik’s hole is where it is, on the left side of his chest directly where his heart should be, because Charles himself felt like his heart had been torn away too the day Erik died.

They cannot change what Erik has become, but at least neither of them have to face the emptiness alone anymore.

“Speaking of defenses,” Erik says, gently drawing Charles out of thought, “I need to reestablish mine. Normally my presence from a distance alone is enough to discourage any of the lesser Hollows from approaching this place, but you _are_ a Captain-level. Your reiatsu is very tempting.”

Despite himself Charles gives a faint smile. “I may as well put out a homing beacon.”

“I can feel them encroaching on my borders, growing in number and boldness. This is something I would barely allow even without your presence here,” Erik says, icy but even, “but now I will not tolerate it.”

“What will you do?” Charles asks softly, though he can already guess.

“Destroy them,” Erik answers, confirming Charles’ suspicions, “and ensure the rest are well aware of the consequences for daring to approach.”

“I can help,” Charles begins to offer, but Erik is already shaking his head.

“In the future, I will welcome you,” the Arrancar says, the true sincerity in his voice softening the blow of rejection, “but not this time. I’m more than enough of a match for these Hollows on my own, but sooner or later more powerful entities will come calling. Then I would have you at my side. But until then, just rest, Charles.” He pauses, dark eyes glinting beneath the shadow of the half-helmet of his Hollow mask fragment. “Please. For me.”

Charles is silent for a few moments before he nods. He’s not entirely happy about this new arrangement, but Erik has brought up a valid point even without directly stating it—like it or not, Charles isn’t at his full strength. “Very well.”

“One more favor,” Erik says, eyes flickering down to Charles’ waist, “wear your sword openly.”

Under any other circumstances Charles would politely refuse, but he sees the wisdom here clear as the bright moonlight: he is a Shinigami in Hueco Mundo. Now is neither the time nor place for falling back on his own personal habit of keeping his Zanpakutō out of sight, having never been a fan of always wearing it at his hip like most Death Gods prefer. It didn’t matter so much in Soul Society, but here the half-second’s delay of concentration it takes to summon the blade into being beside him could mean life or death. He summons the sword now, making sure its sheath is tied securely to his sash, the long graceful reach of the katana’s covered blade hanging well above the ground.

“My thanks.” Erik inclines his head, a degree or two of the tension in his reiatsu lessening at the sight of Charles readily armed. Erik always had a fierce appreciation for swordplay, his Zanjutsu nearly unrivaled during his Captaincy, and even then he’d also harbored a special reverence for Charles’ own skills.

There were days when Erik would rib Charles endlessly about his preference for keeping his Zanpakutō out of sight. Charles always thought it had less to do with Erik’s firm belief of displaying the power they’d worked so hard to obtain and more with Erik enjoying the view of Charles with a sword at his side.

“Of course.” Charles mentally squares his shoulders, and tells himself that all will be well. He won’t go to pieces at the first sign of being separate from Erik again. “Don’t be long.”

“Darling,” Erik breathes, leaning in close so that every word brushes against Charles’ slightly parted lips, “I intend to never be apart from you longer than necessary ever again.”

He surges the rest of the way forward, kissing Charles hot and filthy, pushing his tongue into Charles’ mouth and tracing possessively over the edges of Charles’ teeth and the roof of his mouth, staking claim in places that were already his to begin with. Charles can only gasp, the sound muffled by the press of Erik’s mouth against his, and brings his hands up to fist in the front of Erik’s jacket to keep his balance, tilting his head back to grant Erik better access and sucking gently on his tongue in return.

Erik pulls back gradually, until his lips are only brushing against Charles’ chastely. The hand that has moved up to curl into Charles’ hair slowly slips away, and at the same time Charles unclenches his fingers from Erik’s front. Then, like a rumble of thunder following a sudden white-hot strike of lightning, Erik is gone, his reiatsu swiftly fading into the distance.

Charles blinks, taking a moment to recompose himself. Erik unbalances him and keeps him steady in equal turns, a wildly vacillating state of being. He takes a moment to coil his spirit pressure neatly, tucking in all the loose, frayed ends and compacting himself down, centering himself. He won’t be able to erase his presence completely, but he can try not to stick out so obviously much.

Erik’s reiatsu twined with his own had felt so luminously idyllic and he already aches with the loss.

Charles turns from the bed, businesslike. Erik will be back. In the meantime he can further his exploration of the black, glittering rock fortress as at least he hasn’t been forbidden from leaving the bedroom or anything as similarly ludicrous. He understands Erik’s caution, but happy as he is to be reunited with the one closest to his soul, he still can’t entirely quash the small bubble of resentment at being made to wait, hackles rising at any sign of being presumed to be weak, even though in Erik’s case that is the furthest from the truth. Erik knows Charles’ strength.

His white Captain’s haori still hangs on the back of the chair where he’d left it previously. Like yesterday—two days ago? Last week? He has no way of gauging how much time has passed in this realm of endless night—he pauses before it, considering whether or not to don it. In the end he leaves it again, for nothing more than a vague, cautionary feeling niggling at the back of his mind that persuades him to not advertise his Captaincy more than his reiatsu already does.

More confidently than his previous foray into the fortress, Charles descends from the top of the tower, following the winding staircase back into the vast, column-lined hall below. The first step down is somewhat of a different kind of wakeup call, his entire body twinging jarringly. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s a hard sensation to ignore; a pointed reminder of the kind of use he’s put his body through recently—it’s been a long time, though at least it doesn’t hurt.

Even so, for the first half of the staircase Charles is forced to sidestep down awkwardly until the majority of the soreness fades into a duller, more manageable ache. Erik, no doubt, would be largely pleased with himself were he present to witness Charles’ attempts not to limp. By the time he’s reached what is presumably the ground floor and the rows of tall columns are in view, Charles is able to walk normally again, though he suspects it has more to do with the flat surface than anything else.

He sets off down the long length of the hall, trying to recall how far he’d gotten last time. He doesn’t have any high hopes of finding anything besides more empty rooms, but he may as well become familiar as possible with his new surroundings. This is, after all, going to be home for now.

He has his reiatsu pulled in so tightly, his awareness of other spirit pressures considerably dimmed, that he doesn’t notice Angel’s presence until he sees her physically, out of the corner of his eye, lounging like a cat in a high nook carved out at the top of one of the columns near the ceiling. When she sees him looking up at her, she uncoils herself and drops down from her perch, floating gracefully down through the air until her feet settle softly on the marble floor.

“Hello,” Charles greets her politely. She hasn’t gone directly into attack mode, which is a good enough sign. “I understand we didn’t get off on the right foot yesterday. I’m Charles.”

“I knew it,” she says triumphantly, eyes glittering as she surveys him with renewed curiosity, “you’re _jefe’s_ Charles.”

“I suppose so,” Charles allows, mostly because it seems like the best answer to give. “And you’re Angel?”

She nods, sharp teeth flashing in a quick grin. “That’s right. Don’t worry, I’m only Erik’s Fracción, not his secret _novia_ or something. That’s not to say I didn’t try because hello, right? You’ve obviously seen him. He didn’t want any Fracción to begin with but I followed him anyway because _uno_ , I felt like it and I can do what I want, _y dos_ , he seemed so _solitario_. I wanted to keep him company, you know? So I bugged him and bugged him and he told me _andate a la mierda_ so finally I broke down and shouted at him that he looked so _triste_ it made me sick, when here I was only trying to help. Then he finally cracked and told me all about you, _el amante_ , and looking at you, _chico dulce_ , I can see why he’s held out.”

Charles blinks, head spinning with how fast the younger Arrancar talks, only taking in about half of what she’s actually said. “A moment, please,” he says, mentally rewinding to the main part he’d initially picked up on, “what does being Erik’s Fracción mean?”

Angel stalks forward, moving closer as she examines him curiously. Charles keeps his body language relaxed and nonthreatening, his expression mild. He doesn’t think she means him any harm and is unlikely to lash out at him, since she seems to hold Erik in such high regard and views Charles as something precious to Erik—which, Charles admits, she isn’t wrong. She reminds him of a juvenile cat, predatory enough to be dangerous, yet still retaining characteristics of a kitten; not all the way grown into the formidable grace that Erik possesses.

She circles him once, coming to a stop in front of him again. “You know that we’re Arrancar, _sí_ , and what that means?”

“Arrancar are Hollows that have removed their masks,” Charles answers, easily recalling what Erik has told him.

Angel nods. “ _Bien_. Most Arrancar have numbers, so we’re also called Números. You’ve seen my number—” she grins widely again as she points to the number twenty-one inked on her chest between her breasts, “—and I’m sure you’ve seen _jefe’s_.”

“Two,” Charles replies with a nod, carefully keeping his eyes on Angel’s face. “He said they represented the order of your creation, from Hollow to Arrancar.”

Angel tilts her head. “Really? That’s partially true, I guess.”

Charles smiles politely. “Please, will you explain? I’m finding myself very lost. The Gotei 13 doesn’t even know that Arrancar exist.”

Angel turns guarded, eyeing him warily. “You Shinigami aren’t supposed to know about us. Not yet.”

Tread carefully, Charles tells himself. “Well, _I_ can hardly tell anyone, can I? I’m trapped here, and I have no way to reach anyone back in Soul Society.”

Beneath that, it makes Charles wonder what he even would include in his official report to the Captain-Commander, had he even the slightest chance of ever making it back to the Gotei 13. The news of creatures that are half-Hollow, half-Shinigami would cause a stir that he can only begin to imagine the repercussions of. Shinigami by nature are slow to change, and overall are not very accepting. The Quincy Wars, and the subsequent extermination of the Quincy as a whole, are evidence enough of that.

They would want to eradicate the Arrancar too, viewing them only as a threat without bothering to try and investigate.

“You saw how Erik has been without me, these past two hundred years,” Charles says quietly, for Angel is still watching him suspiciously, “and without him, I have been much the same. Believe me when I say that now that I have found him, I don’t want to lose him ever again. I would not betray him.”

Angel regards him, her solemn expression oddly reminiscent of Erik’s. “ _Lo puedo ver en tus ojos_. You’ve suffered.”

Charles isn’t sure how to respond to that, resorting to simply nodding. It’s the truth. He had.

“Soulmates,” Angel sighs, “ _qué romantico_.”

“So why was what Erik told me only partially true?” Charles asks, steering the conversation back towards what he wants to know and away from his personal affairs.

“When Números are reborn, from Hollow to Arrancar, we’re given our number that represents the order of our birth,” Angel explains, “but that list starts in the two-digits, with _once_. Eleven.”

Charles absorbs this new information. “What does it mean that Erik’s number is two, then?”

“The first ten Números are the _strongest_ among the Números, and they’re called Espada. The Espada are hand-picked and ranked according to their strength. So,” Angel says proudly, “ _jefe_ is the second-strongest Espada in the whole army.”

Army? Charles keeps his face carefully neutral. “And Fracción?”

“Fracción are Números that are picked by the Espada to serve under them directly. An Espada can have as many or as little Fracción as they want. Like I said, Erik wanted none, but I followed him anyway so he’s stuck with me. I’m his only Fracción. Well,” and now she leers at him, “you’re not Arrancar but you might as well be his Fracción now too, since you said you wouldn’t betray him. We can be _amigos_.”

“I would like that,” Charles tells her honestly, while meanwhile his mind races. Whoever is creating Arrancar isn’t doing so without purpose—they’re building an entire army of very powerful, mixed beings. But for what purpose?

You Shinigami aren’t supposed to know about us, Angel had said. Not yet.

_Not yet._ Cold dread is slowly beginning to creep down his spine.

“—when I say _serve under_ , it’s more like special troops, though in your case you’d probably just _service_ him, as in—”

“Angel,” Charles interrupts her, before she can say something explicit and derail his train of thought. He thinks quickly how to word his next question without seeming overly obvious. “When you say that Espada are hand-picked, what does that mean? Who determines their rankings?”

Angel lifts one slender shoulder in a shrug. “ _El Dios_ , of course.”

“God?” Charles asks blankly.

“I don’t know if he’s really a god,” Angel says uncertainly, “I’ve never seen him in person. But they say he’s so strong that he may as well be one. That’s why they call him _Dios_.”

Charles carefully files this information away, suddenly glad that Erik had insisted that he stay behind, or otherwise he may have never gotten to talk to Angel so candidly. He has a feeling that all of this is information Erik hadn’t wanted to share with him yet, especially with the half-lie he’d told Charles about his number tattoo.

He briefly considers questioning Angel more, but dismisses the notion. Erik will probably be unhappy with her enough for revealing this much. Now, Charles thinks grimly, he can just ask Erik himself directly, both about the Arrancar’s creator and why Erik wants to keep it a secret.

Angel doesn’t seem to be bothered by his thoughtful silence, which is probably a direct result of having spent so much time in Erik’s company. Instead she continues her unabashed examination of him, which makes Charles feel, now that he’s come out of thought enough to notice, like he’s been put on display.

She steps forward again, until she’s only inches in front of him. Charles has never been fortunate enough to consider himself tall, but Angel is shorter still, petite but not without well-defined, powerful muscles. She isn’t someone to trifle with. He holds himself still, even when she reaches up to brush her fingers against the side of his throat.

“ _Tiburón_ ,” she says fondly, and Charles flushes, his memory helpfully flashing back to Erik sucking a mark with his tongue and teeth into the same spot. Angel laughs in delight, moving away again but covering her mouth with one hand while her eyes shine with mirth.

Charles clears his throat. “Is there anything else in this fortress besides empty rooms?”

“No, _está vacío_ ,” Angel says with another half-shrug. “Hueco Mundo is a whole lot of emptiness in general, _hombre_. Get it, because Hollows?”

“I’m glad you followed Erik,” Charles says, suddenly flooded with immense gratitude, “I’m glad that despite all the emptiness, you both weren’t alone.”

“Hey,” Angel says, and it’s her turn to flush as she looks away, “don’t get all sentimental with me. I was trying to put the moves on your man, remember? Anyway, did _jefe_ tell you what they call this place?”

Charles shakes his head. “No, he hasn’t.”

“Didn’t get a lot of talking done, did you?” Angel smirks at him. “Come on, it’s easier to show you.” She pauses. “Can Shinigami use Sonído?”

It takes Charles a moment to realize what she means. “If you mean flash stepping, then yes. We call it Shunpo.”

“Shunpo,” Angel says, trying the word out. “I like Sonído better.” She beckons. “Follow me. I know the place with the best view.” She takes off, her form distorting and flickering out of view.

Charles hesitates for a moment. Erik did technically ask him to remain here, and by the sound of it Angel is leading him outside of the fortress. They can’t be going too far, however, and if Erik’s confidence is anything to go by, no other Hollows should be even remotely close by. He steps off in pursuit, following Angel’s reiatsu.

They run down the long length of the silent hall, blowing through the same double doors leading out to the wide balcony overlooking the desert. Angel doesn’t pause, tearing straight over the edge of the railing and out into open air so Charles follows, the two of them running across the rolling sand dunes in the sky, crossing hundreds of meters in the space of a single stride.

Angel’s course angles a little to the right, and then crests the top of a particularly large dune that looms above the rest. Near the top is an old, dilapidated remnant of a building, half-buried in the sand and looking as if it’d been torn off its main structure and hurled out here alone many, many years ago. The top is flat, large enough for ten people to stand with plenty of room left over, and it is here that Angel alights, coming to a stop so abrupt that her image distorts again, air buzzing with a soft crackle.

Charles stops beside her, touching down lightly. The short sprint has worked out the remaining soreness that still lingered in his muscles, and he stretches luxuriously, relishing in the light, airy feeling in its place. Put simply, he’s forgotten how good it feels to get laid, a thought which nearly makes him laugh out loud—and then makes him pause, because he’s forgotten that sensation as well.

“ _Mira_ ,” Angel says fortunately, before his thoughts can turn maudlin, so he turns to obey. “The lesser Hollow trash call _jefe’s_ territory _La Playa_. See why?”

Charles takes in the black fortress in its imposing entirety where it rises up out of the sand. From the outside it’s not nearly as big as the vast emptiness on the inside seemed, but then again, it’s hard to gauge size and space in Hueco Mundo compared to the Soul Society or even the Material World. The tower is most easily recognizable feature, its jagged, pointed pinnacle rising up above everything else. It has a strange shape, which Charles hadn’t realized when he’d been near the top in the bedroom or descending down the narrow, spiraling staircase, almost triangular in shape, which makes the fortress as a whole look like—

“ _El tiburón_ ,” Charles says, and Angel nods.

“ _Sí_ ,” she answers with approval, “it looks like one, doesn’t it? _Jefe_ doesn’t help matters much either, looking like one too with all those teeth and the way he glides around like _muerte_. Anyway, that’s what they call it. _Fortaleza Tiburón, en La Playa_.”

“Not _el mar_?” Charles asks wryly, and Angel snickers.

“This whole realm is one huge _mar_ ,” she answers, gesturing around at the eternity of sand. The rolling dunes could be taken for waves. “So I guess they wanted to be a little more specific.” She pauses, thoughtful. “It’s known as a place to avoid. Erik isn’t very welcoming or tolerant to Hollows. As he shouldn’t be,” she adds viciously, as if daring Charles to contradict her, “we’re evolved to be better and stronger.”

“I’m afraid it’s my fault the Hollows are infringing on his territory,” Charles says mildly, deciding to stay neutral. “He wasn’t pleased. He went to go remove them.”

“Good,” Angel says, some of the fire still evident in her voice. “He’ll eat them all. They won’t stand a—”

A new reiatsu drops down on them out of nowhere, cutting Angel off mid-sentence and making Charles’ breath catch in his throat. It presses down on them like a thousand-ton weight, chilling and malevolent, Angel’s knees quivering for a second before she drops down to a crouch, gasping for air. Charles himself locks his knees but is momentarily rendered frozen, bones and muscle rusted in place, every particle of his own reiatsu recoiling in aversion.

The air shifts behind him and someone is there, leaning over his shoulders from behind, the pressure only increasing tenfold with such close proximity. One dainty, cold hand slides over his arm and strong, slender fingers grip him by the chin, tilting his head back slightly in an unrelenting grip.

“Well, well, well little Shinigami,” comes a silky voice in his ear as the air around them trembles with power and malice, “ _bienvenidos al infierno_.”

 

X

 

The alarms start to blare, echoing across the Seireitei and effectively shattering the usual peace and quiet that blankets the Gotei 13 headquarters without warning.

Alex stops in his tracks where he’d been pacing a rut into the floor while thinking about Hank’s sentence, looking up with a frown. “What the hell?”

Sean doesn’t move where he sits on the couch in the Eleventh Division’s office. The Fifth Division Vice-Captain has been in a state of listless shock ever since their return to the Seireitei, lost and directionless with his Captain still missing. It’s been a week since Captain Xavier has gone missing, with no sign of him at all.

The last ringing echo of the alarms has died off when Armando alights in the doorway, calm but troubled. “An emergency Captain’s meeting has been called,” he says before Alex can open his mouth, “Vice-Captains are to stand by for further orders.”

“What the fuck’s going on?” Alex demands, his reiatsu already rising with tension.

“It’s just a rumor,” Armando answers grimly, and even Sean finally looks up at his tone, “but I’ve heard that the Seireitei has been invaded.”

“Impossible,” Alex says, shaking his head.

“By _who_?” Sean asks in disbelief.

“Ryoka,” Armando answers, “humans.”

 

X

 

Erik has always reveled in swordplay while Charles has always preferred the poetry of Kido, but he’s learned to translate that same tireless flow into the economy of his movements, every stretch and pull of muscle like a line of separate meaning that coalesce into one emotive whole. The cold fingers against his skin are focal points, his reiatsu surging forward and his body unfreezing as he pivots, tearing free of their grasp on his chin and whirling around, drawing his Zanpakutō in one long, graceful arc of steel that flashes in the moonlight and meets opposing steel in a harsh clang that rings out across the sands.

“Little?” Charles asks calmly, keeping his arms steady even as the blade on top of his own presses down with formidable weight. “I suppose I too would blunder about if I kept my reiatsu on at full blast all the time, but fortunately I would never be so gauche.”

His opponent sneers, and twists their blades in a circle, prying them apart with a loud scrape of metal-on-metal so that they stand apart. There’s no question that she’s an Arrancar, with her Hollow-Shinigami mixed reiatsu and white uniform that’s even more revealing than Angel’s—only a barely-there strip of white covering her breasts, nothing about her curves left to imagination, and an only slightly thicker strip of white serving to cover her lower regions. Her Hollow mask fragment has taken the form of a long row of sharp and jagged Hollow teeth that rests along her left jaw, extending back against the side of her face, while another curve of white bone swirls up her cheek and covers her left eye, blocking it entirely from view.

Her right eye glitters like a diamond as she surveys Charles in return, the wicked curve of her sword more scythe-like than katana. “A Shinigami pig teaching _me_ about manners? We’re in a deeper hell than I first imagined.”

On her knees, Angel still gasps for breath. “Lady,” she pleads, “Lady, please—”

“Angel, darling,” the Arrancar says with a razor-sharp smile, “haven’t we taught you to kill Shinigami on sight?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then what, pray tell, is this one still doing alive?”

“He’s—he’s—”

“Strong, I’ll grant him that,” the Arrancar purrs, and then her gaze flickers over Charles once again. “Hmm. Clearly you wouldn’t have been able to keep him hidden from dear Erik, so what must he think? Unless…” Her single eye narrows speculatively. “ _No me digas_ …”

“He’s Erik’s,” Angel grits out, lifting her head with considerable effort, “ _él es el amante de_ Erik.”

Charles gathers up a current of his reiatsu and twists it around his sword, slashing his blade once through the air, creating a buffet of power that knocks the Arrancar back a step and breaks her concentration long enough to release Angel from her death grip. Angel gasps in relief as the pressure weighing down on her disappears, sitting up only far enough to slump back into a weary sitting position as she pants.

“Apologies, my lady,” Charles says coolly as the Arrancar readjusts her position, glittering eye still narrowed, “but perhaps instead of interrogating Angel, you might just ask me instead.”

“Still lecturing me on manners?” she asks silkily, her reiatsu slowly extending forward again, a massive glacier of crushing intent. “You’re a regular professor. But please, call me Emma.”

“Emma.” Charles inclines his head once. He holds his own reiatsu back for now, but keeps careful watch on hers, in case she’s gearing up for another strike. “Charles Xavier.”

“Oh, darling,” Emma says, smiling now, and on the surface it is pleasant and almost pretty, beneath lies nothing but cruel vindictiveness. “ _Yo sé_.”

Charles remains expressionless, holding his Zanpakutō out in front of him with both hands gripping the hilt. Emma has relaxed her pose, no longer appearing on the verge of attack, but he doesn’t trust her. Something about her is off, something he’s failing to notice, but Charles can’t quite pin down what.

“You must know Erik very well,” is all he says evenly, because it’s clear that she’s fishing for a reaction.

“I do.” Her answer comes sharp and fast, cracking like a whip. Charles remains unmoved. Even so, she considers him speculatively. “I must admit, _me sorprende_ that Erik finally went to collect you on his own. He’s only been moping around about you for, what was it now, _doscientos años_?”

Charles starts before he can stop himself, brow furrowing in confusion. “Collect me?”

“Sí.” Emma’s voice is carelessly casual, but she watches him intently. Distantly Charles realizes why she seems off—her Hollow hole is nowhere in sight. “I can’t say how many times I’ve told him to man up and go get you, _pero él siempre se negó_.”

“What do you mean, come get me?” Charles asks. It’s as if another kind of hole has opened up in the ground beneath him, threatening to swallow him alive. He’d been calm, before, even in the face of Emma’s unexpected attack, but now his heart beats painfully hard.

“Didn’t he say?” Emma smiles slyly. “ _Somos_ Espada, Charles. We can open gateways between Hueco Mundo and Soul Society like that.” She snaps her fingers. “All this time Erik could’ve come to you himself, and shown you that he was still alive, and begged you to keep loving him despite the fact that he’s a monster to you now, isn’t he? But he didn’t.”

Eyes wide, Charles looks to Angel for confirmation, because surely Emma is lying. The Fracción twists her mouth, shaking her head. “ _Lo siento_ , Charles, I thought you knew. It’s true. Espada can open gateways if they want. They call them Garganta. I’ve wondered too why he didn’t just go get you all this time.”

Emma’s smile becomes a full-on smirk, viciously pleased, each word a physical blow. “He knowingly let you suffer alone for two hundred years, so _dime_ , Charles, what made him change his mind _ahora_?”


	7. ¡Mala Suerte!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hurried to get this chapter finished just for **ikeracity** , so I could post it while I sit next to her right now. :D Enjoy, fry, and now you can even punch me in real life at long last for all the emotional trauma I have caused you with this fic. :')
> 
> Thanks again to _mi amor_ **MonstrousRegiment** for giving me the correct Spanish phrasing that I was looking for.
> 
> Chapter title casually lifted from chapter 202 of Tite Kubo's _Bleach_.

Betrayal, Charles thinks distantly, high above the white noise ringing in his ears that blocks everything else out, is not the clean cut of a sharpened and honed katana, slicing neatly through bone and flesh with no resistance. Instead it is jagged, sawing and tearing with no finesse, gutting him completely where he has left himself most unguarded, leaving a metaphorical, gaping hole not unlike a Hollow’s.

Part of him wants to shy away, refuse to believe these two strangers— _enemies_ , his mind helpfully supplies—but it’s quickly drowned out by the larger part of him that knows, with terrible, terrible certainty, that this time things don’t stack up in Erik’s favor. Angel has no reason to lie to him, and Erik has already fed him misinformation, when he deigned to give Charles information at all.

The cracks in his heart, only barely just tentatively beginning to refill and heal, splinter open again and for a moment he can’t see, can’t think, can’t breathe, because Erik— _why_ —

“ _Pobrecito_ ,” Emma purrs, her mockingly sympathetic voice cutting through the suffocating fog that threatens to overwhelm him, jarring him back to the present. “I take it he hadn’t told you.”

“Leave him alone,” Angel whispers, her eyes round and wide.

Charles doesn’t know what his expression looks like, but if it comes close to mirroring any of the emotions that swell up from deep within his very core, he imagines that it’s not a pretty sight to behold. He hurts. He _aches_ with hurt. There’s no doubt that it shows on his face because there’s no way right now for him to artfully conceal the emotions pitching and rolling inside him, no way for him to compose his face into anything remotely close to equanimity. Not when his hands are shaking where they’re clenched tightly around the hilt of his Zanpakutō. Not when he’s unable to keep the torn, frayed edges of his reiatsu from spider webbing out, his mental and emotional unbalance tossing his spirit pressure into wild disarray.

Not when the staggering weight of two hundred years of sorrow and grief is crushing back down on him, heavier with the knowledge that it all could have been avoided entirely.

Erik appears without warning, reiatsu completely concealed with his usual ironclad control until the last possible millisecond, a slight increase in the surrounding air pressure his only tell. While his spirit pressure is just as malevolent and powerful as Emma’s, it’s still gentler on Charles’ senses, and would be welcoming and soothing if it weren’t for the fact that Charles’ reiatsu recoils from him at once.

“You lied to me,” Charles says before Erik can even open his mouth, and the iciness of his own tone surprises distantly even himself.

“Charles—”

“You let me suffer alone for two hundred years,” Charles continues, staring him down with the same false calm he’s worn like armor for every single one of those passing years. In the past it served to cover nearly unbearable heartache, but this time is different—now it’s only a thin shield against an anger that wells up from deep inside him, resonating out along every particle of his reiatsu until he’s nearly burning with it. “For _two hundred years_ , Erik.”

“ _Hola_ , Erik,” Emma interjects with a smirk, “¿ _cómo estás_?”

Erik ignores her, or at least appears to; he doesn’t acknowledge her, but neither does he turn his back fully to her, instead remaining where he can still see her out of the corner of his eye even while focusing his gaze on Charles. Together they form three points of a wide triangle as they all face off, with Angel still crouched on the ground off to the side, looking between each of them warily.

“Charles,” Erik repeats intently, hands out in front of himself palm-down in a gesture for calm, “not here.”

“Then _where_ , Erik?” Charles snaps, patience dangling by a thin, fraying thread. “I asked you to explain to me earlier, and all you said was _later_. It’s later now, Erik, and I’ve finally gotten answers from someone other than you. Was anything you told me the truth?”

“I asked you to stay inside the fortress for a reason,” Erik answers, and at that Charles can’t stay still, taking a juddering half-step forward, reiatsu spiking upwards and poised to strike.

“So you could lie to me more?” he snarls, because it is far easier to be angry than show how much he hurts, hackles up and the cracks in his heart growing ever wider. “Keep me from finding out that you purposefully let me believe _for two hundred years_ that you were _dead_ , that I had _killed you_ , while you sat over here in Hueco Mundo having a good laugh about it with _her?_ ” He jerks his head towards Emma, who doesn’t bother to conceal a laugh. “When were you going to tell me _that_ , Erik?”

“When it was safe—”

“I’m not safe,” Charles cries, the last of his false composure dissipating like a mirage on the sands, “and I’m not ever going to _be_ safe down here! I’m a Shinigami trapped in the realm of my sworn enemies, though I suppose you can fix that at any point now, can’t you,” he spits, “and just open a gate for us to stroll leisurely through? Is that what you were waiting for?”

Erik takes a breath, still so calm that it makes Charles want to scream. “There are bigger things at play here—”

“And I’ve been asking you to _tell me_ ,” Charles shouts, fury making his vision go spotty, the blade of his Zanpakutō glowing with his reiatsu, made tangible by his heightened emotions. “I spent two centuries dying a little every day without you, and _you knew_ —”

“Maybe he just didn’t care,” Emma breaks in with a sly smile, single visible eye glittering like a diamond, beautiful but cold, “ _tal vez ya no te quiere._ ”

“Emma,” Erik snarls, temper showing at last. The glance he sends her way could peel paint off a mural, but the other Espada merely laughs again.

“Time to face the facts, Charles,” she purrs, taking a few sauntering steps forward, exaggerating the motion of her curvy hips, “you’re just a pawn on the board, and Erik’s been upgraded to a knight. You’re out of your league, _chico_. ¡ _Mala suerte_!”

“Do you want to fight, Emma?” Charles demands, rounding on her with narrowed eyes, itching for an excuse to lash out at someone, _anyone_ , with the built up pressure barely held back by two hundred years of iron self-control. He’s tired of holding it all in, so _tired_ , and if Emma wants to goad him into attacking—

“Please,” Emma jeers, coming to a stop, “you’re in no state to take me on, _niño pequeño_.”

“You think so?” Charles says, gathering up as much spirit pressure as he can, letting it swirl around him slowly. On the ground around him sand grains roll away from his feet as his reiatsu condenses, leaving a perfect circle of clear rock around him. “You think you’re untouchable?”

“You couldn’t put a single scratch on me,” Emma breathes, eye alight as she smiles a terrible smile, and the last fiber of control Charles has snaps.

Erik lunges forward. “Charles, _don’t_ —”

“Shut up, Erik,” Charles says through gritted teeth, and brings his Zanpakutō down at a sharp angle, shifting his hands further apart on the hilt and letting his reiatsu pour forward into the blade, stretching a muscle he hasn’t used in a long, long time. “X marks the spot, Cerebro.”

 

X

 

Raven is halfway across a wide, empty courtyard between buildings when the sky falls down.

She can’t even move. Every single muscle in her body locks into place, her body grinding to a halt like a rusted machine, rooted to the spot and frozen in her tracks. The reiatsu bearing down on her is distorting the air, blurring her surroundings and making it hard to breathe, hard to think as cold sweat trickles down her back.

She’s been through two skirmishes so far and come out on top, grimly victorious as she leads the rest of the Gotei 13 on a merry chase through the Seireitei. The two opponents she faced were strong, but she was stronger.

This new foe’s power is absolute.

Raven gasps for breath, fear clawing its way out of her throat in the form of a whimper as the foreign reiatsu continues to press down, slowly squashing her like a bug. How is she supposed to fight, how is she supposed to _win_ , if she can’t even move? She’s never felt someone this strong before, not even the Captain who had been present back in the Material World when Hank was taken.

_Come on_ , she snarls to herself, willing her body to unlock and pushing her fear down and away because there’s no room for it here, not right now, _come on, move. Move, damn it. Move!_

Raven whirls around and in the same motion reaches over her back to grasp the hilt of her Zanpakutō, tugging it out of its wrappings and up over her shoulder in a wide arc, bringing it down just in time to slam into her enemy’s blade with a screech of metal, stopping the other Zanpakutō inches from her stomach.

“You don’t fucking scare me,” she growls, even as her arms tremble with tension and the force of strength she’s exerting to hold her opponent back from cutting her in half.

“That’s good,” he answers, giving her a warm and friendly smile. For someone whose reiatsu feels like a howling monster just barely held at bay, he seems…normal. “I already think you’re very brave, to come after your friend. I respect that. But unfortunately, your journey comes to an end here. It’s over.”

“It’s not going to be over until I find Hank,” Raven snaps, glaring at him, “so either shut up and get out of my way, or I’ll cut you down.”

He laughs, calm but amused. “You have spirit. In a different life, we could’ve been friends. What’s your name?”

“Raven Darkholme,” Raven says with her best cocksure grin, “who the fuck’re you?”

“My name is Armando Muñoz, Captain of the Eleventh Division,” he answers, smiling back, and the pressure of his reiatsu increases by tenfold, “but you can call me Kenpachi.”

 

X

 

He has only just gorged himself on ten thousand lesser Hollows, and he is still hungry.

Charles—appetizing Charles, whose reiatsu glimmers temptingly like a minnow while his heart beats loudly in Erik’s head—blinks out of sight, taking off at Shunpo before Erik can reach him. His instincts scream at him to give chase, to run down fleeing prey and devour Charles whole, but Erik tamps down on the urge and comes to a stop, standing in the spot Charles has vacated a split second too late.

“Only Shikai?” Emma says, arrogant as always with no idea of how fucked she is this time. Erik would warn her, but he’s hated Emma ever since he first laid eyes on her and certainly isn’t inclined to help her now. “That little Shinigami has another thing coming if he thinks he can beat me with only the first release of his sword.”

Erik whirls around to face her, drawing his own blade from the sheath at his hip. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Ruined your chances of ever getting laid again?” Emma sneers at him, marring her pretty face. Her reiatsu glitters like snow freshly fallen on the tundra. It makes Erik thirsty. “ _Estoy contrariado_ at how easy it was to fuck things up for you, it’s like I barely had to try at all.”

“ _Puta_ ,” Angel shouts from the ground, eyes alight with dangerous fury, “why’d you even show your face here, Erik’s told you _andate a la mierda_ —”

“Strike the first,” Erik murmurs, and Emma screams.

Charles is a master of Shunpo, one of the fastest Shinigami in the Gotei 13, so there’s no way to track his movements now as long as he keeps running, but Erik doesn’t need to be able to see him to know when he’s about to strike—he knows Charles, has etched every fiber of Charles’ being into his memory, from the sound of his laugh to the color of his eyes to the way he moves when he kills.

Emma staggers forward a step, a long, blue line spreading across her side like a tattoo. She isn’t bleeding, but Erik knows from experience that there’s still considerable force behind the blow that left behind the mark, knows from experience that you don’t need to bleed in order to be in pain.

“What the hell is this?” Emma hisses, baring her teeth in an ugly snarl. She rubs at the mark but it doesn’t smear or go away, bold against her pale skin. It’s almost artful, in a way; the absent brushstroke of an artist contemplating a masterpiece rather than a jagged gash. Charles always was brilliant. “Is this some kind of _chiste_?”

Erik shifts one foot, pivoting around just in time to block a blow aimed for his spine, his sword colliding with Charles’ with a loud clang. “Nice try, darling,” he says quietly, eyes flickering up to try and make out Charles’ face.

“Fuck you, Erik,” Charles whispers, and a second blow comes, too fast for Erik to block in time—it’s hard to block two blades at once when you yourself are only holding one.

Erik’s forced to take a step back as Charles’ second blade cuts across his ribs, a long, blue line identical to the one on Emma blooming in its wake and Charles doesn’t pause, taking off again and disappearing from sight.

Cerebro, Erik muses as he straightens, shifting to face Emma fully again just in case she decides she’s in the mood to fight both of them. Cerebro’s Shikai, or first release, is more unique than most—all Shikai are different, changing the shape and power of a Zanpakutō based on the Kaigo, or release command. Cerebro’s _X marks the spot_ transforms the blade from a single katana to daishō; two blades, one slightly longer than the other, and a rare manifestation as most Zanpakutō remain a single blade even after being released.

The precision with which Charles wields his blades is surgical, and that coupled with his speed makes him downright lethal. Erik’s not worried that Charles will actually kill him, but given Cerebro’s ability, he’ll certainly be able to make it feel that way.

“Erik,” Angel says, looking up at him from where she’s still crouched on the ground with wide eyes, “¿ _qué está pasando_? What do those marks mean?”

“Stay there and don’t move, Angel,” Erik tells her, feeling carefully for Charles’ reiatsu. Ragged and torn as it is, it’s easy enough for him to track, frayed edges trailing out behind Charles like string. “He won’t hurt you, at least.” Charles would never, not while he still perceives Angel as a bystander.

“You should’ve told him,” Angel says, quiet and disappointed, “ _que te ama_.”

“ _Yo sé_ ,” Erik says, just above a whisper, and then braces himself for impact.

There is fury in Charles’ blades, his movements not as cold and clear as Erik remembers, knows they can be, his hurt bleeding through into his swordsmanship. They exchange a flurry of blows, Erik losing ground quickly as he’s forced to sacrifice room and step backwards in order to avoid that second blade. He hisses every time Charles lands a blow, blue markings covering his chest and shoulders and one even spread across his left thigh, but he crushes down the nearly overwhelming urge to truly fight back, to reach forward with his reiatsu and hook into Charles and tear him apart.

If he can pin Charles down and fuck him without giving into the bottomless, screaming temptation to eat him alive, then surely he can fight Charles too.

“You’re not giving me a chance to explain, Charles,” Erik says, blocking a jab aimed right for his face and earning another blue slash across his forearm for his trouble. “If you’d just listen—”

“I was willing to listen earlier,” Charles snaps, and he’s beautiful when he’s angry, his reiatsu pulsing with vibrant, strong emotion and Erik wishes he could feel that again, feel anything other than eternal hunger. “But not anymore. You _left me alone for two hundred years_ —” the words cut off on a sound that’s half sob, half wordless shout, and this time all the air is knocked clear out of Erik’s lungs like being punched when Cerebro’s longer blade cuts across his chest. “I _mourned_ you. And you—and you— _fuck off, Emma_.”

So focused on Charles, Erik has temporarily forgotten entirely that they have an audience—amateur mistake, but one he fortunately doesn’t have to pay for on the account of Charles’ own awareness. Emma has allowed her wickedly curved sword to extend out to its larger form, a scythe that’s taller than even Erik is with a curved, cruel blade to match, and launches herself at Charles from behind, thinking to take him unaware but that’s just the thing: it’s nearly impossible to take Charles unaware, not while Cerebro is released and he’s made the first cut.

Just as quickly as Charles attacked Erik he rounds on Emma, darting past the long reach of her scythe before she can compensate and Erik takes great satisfaction in hearing her scream again, another blue line appearing across the first, the two lines forming a large X that suddenly glows red on her skin. Before she can retaliate Charles is gone, zipping off out of sight and reach once again.

Erik pauses, panting slightly and admiring the X that currently has Emma twisting around while she tries to see the full extent of what’s been done to her, cursing. At this point it’s very, very obvious that while Erik has collected more blue marks from Charles’ blades, none of them have been slashed into X’s, remaining blue instead of an angry red—despite his anger, Charles’ accuracy has remained flawless.

“What is this,” Emma shouts, her voice echoing across the sands, “you wield a sword that doesn’t cut, ¿ _qué tipo de_ Shinigami _es usted_?”

“ _Mala suerte_ , Emma,” Charles answers softly, his voice coming from above. Erik’s gaze finds him crouched overhead on top of the remains of a thick, stone column that juts up out of the sand dune. “Can you feel the tingling sensation creeping up your spine? Can you feel the heaviness in your limbs, your scythe?”

“Poison,” Emma spits in disgust.

“Not quite,” Charles answers, slowly straightening until he’s standing again, towering over them all on his perch, a blade in each hand. His gaze cuts to Erik coldly. “Why don’t you tell her, Erik. She claims to know you very well, so you must tell her a lot of things.”

“Charles,” Erik growls, shooting Emma a glare. “Listen to me. This fight isn’t worth it. Come back with me.” He tilts his head sideways to indicate the fortress, black stone glittering in the stark moonlight. “I swear I’ll tell you everything. My discretion doesn’t matter any more, if Emma knows you’re here. We’re already running out of time.”

“You should have told me everything when I first asked,” Charles answers, voice hard. His reiatsu fans out around him, powerful but damaged, broadcasting his pain and anger without really intending to. “How could you, Erik. How _could_ you.”

“Because I am not the same Erik you loved two centuries ago,” Erik says, the emptiness inside him aching with the need to be filled. Nothing will ever be enough, not even Charles, and he clings to that thought with every last iota of self-control he possesses.

“Yes you are,” Charles says with a trembling voice, sorrow mixing with anger now and Erik _wants_ him, wants to touch him, wants to drink him in and absorb him until they are one and the same, unable to be separate ever again. "I can see the toll it takes on you, to hold back from destroying me. A monster wouldn’t do that. You’re still Erik.”

“I am trying to protect you,” Erik says, taking a step forward towards the column, sword tip lowered by a fraction.

“Your protection has cost me,” Charles shakes his head, reiatsu rippling in his agitation, “it has cost me _so much_ , Erik.”

“Touching,” Emma says, twirling her scythe around once, “but this is getting boring. I don’t know what your Zanpakutō is doing to me but I can assure you—” she gives a razor sharp smile, “—it’s not enough.”

She springs forward up through the air, drawing back her scythe and swinging at Charles with a loud cry. Charles accelerates to Shunpo, blinking out of sight and leaving only a faint disruption of air, sprinting around Emma’s wicked blade to strike from behind. Emma’s ready for him this time, whirling around, and Erik launches himself into the air too with a snarl, attacking Emma to split her attention enough so that her vicious swing falters, forced to turn her attack into a defense. Charles’ dual blades scrape against the curved metal of the scythe, while Erik’s own jagged blade carves into the scythe’s white hilt.

“I don’t need your help, Erik,” Charles hisses as he whips past, the words tossed out into the air in his wake.

“Then start thinking straight,” Erik snaps, jumping back a few paces in the air while Emma twirls her scythe around again with a frustrated huff. “She’s stronger than she looks and you’re being driven by anger instead of clarity.”

“I wonder whose fault that is,” comes the biting answer, and Charles attacks again, dancing around Emma’s weapon and landing another long, blue cut across her shoulder.

With a shout of pain Emma lashes out, batting Charles away like a fly with the scythe, her reiatsu packed behind the blow to add to its strength, the impact like a small explosion. The only reason Charles isn’t cut in half is because his blades are still up, saving him from that lethal, curved edge of the scythe. He’s still thrown backwards, sent careening through the air and Erik takes off at Sonído, running after him and catching him before he can smash into one of the other tall sand dunes of the desert landscape.

“We’re going to have to kill her now,” Erik murmurs as their momentum slows, brought to a halt in midair high above the white sands, his free arm around Charles. “Now that she knows you’re here, she cannot be allowed to return to _El Dios_.”

Charles shrugs out of his hold, putting a few paces worth of distance between them, but at least he doesn’t try to cut Erik again. “That would mean more to me if you had explained things to me.”

Erik’s gaze travels over him carefully. For every cut or scrape or bruise Emma leaves behind on Charles, Erik will repay in kind. “I’ve been trying to keep you hidden for a reason, Charles.”

“I always thought we were equals, Erik,” Charles says bitterly, “partners in every way.” He turns away, rotating back to face Emma, who advances towards them slowly with her scythe held high.

“You can’t beat her with Shikai alone, Charles” Erik says, stepping up beside him. “It won’t be enough. She can—”

“Angel told me the truth about what your number means,” Charles interrupts him flatly, muscles coiling as Emma starts picking up speed, “so if you’re so afraid of her, that means—”

In the blink of an eye Emma goes from being one hundred yards away to right in front of them, swinging her scythe with another burst of raw power. Charles leaps forward, crossing his dual blades like an X and catching the long hilt of the scythe between them, twisting beneath the curved blade. He swings one of Cerebro’s blades loose, aiming for Emma’s shoulder, but Emma opens her mouth and fires off a quick Cero directly at Charles’ face.

The Cero is small, the power gathered quickly and therefore not strong enough to do true damage while still packing force, and though Charles swings his second blade down to protect his face and absorb the beam of energy as best as he can, he’s still blown backwards again, letting out a cry when the scythe clips him on the shoulder.

Erik snarls, shooting forward as Emma winds up for another attack, barreling into her and knocking her off course while Charles recovers his footing. Emma laughs, the sound cold and high as she swings her weapon again, this time at Erik, and Erik slams his sword up vertically to avoid being decapitated, grunting with the effort of stopping Emma’s scythe. It’s all the time Charles needs to sprint forward again, air crackling with friction in his wake, and land his originally intended blow against Emma’s shoulder at last, diagonally across the blue line already there. Emma howls as the X on her shoulder glows red to match the one on her side, and Erik leaps backwards out of the way as she whips her scythe around at random in her fury.

Strike the second.

“Charles,” he calls, slipping back across the air to where Charles has come to a stop.

Charles is panting, watching as Emma writhes, one hand lifted to clutch at his shoulder where the scythe caught him. Erik can smell the blood, his entire being leaning forward in wordless anticipation, Hollow senses attuned to wounded prey. How easy it would be, to rend flesh away and suck out the reiatsu harbored beneath, to crack him open like a seed and consume the very essence of what makes Charles whole.

“Going to eat me now?” Charles asks him, jolting him back out of the near-hypnotizing thoughts.

“I would savor every last drop of your reiatsu,” Erik tells him, drifting closer, “but it wouldn’t be enough.”

Charles watches him for a moment longer, slowly lowering his hand again from his shoulder, fingers and Cerebro’s hilt red with blood. The wound isn’t dangerous, not restricting Charles’ movement of his arm as far as Erik can tell, but with time it will, as well as wear him down as blood continues to ooze out. They can’t afford to drag this fight out regardless, so if they can take Emma out before she—

“Finding it hard to move yet, Emma?” Charles drawls, putting stop to Emma’s thrashing. “That scythe is getting hard to control, isn’t it?”

“What have you done to me,” Emma grits out, turning to face them. Her movements are noticeably slower now—not by much, but enough to be noticeable.

“Three strikes and you’re out,” Charles says, pointedly tracking his gaze to the first red X on Emma’s side and then to the second on her shoulder, “only one more to go.”

“ _Respóndeme_ ,” Emma snarls, bringing her scythe forward with effort to point it at Charles.

“Cerebro does not make a true cut,” Charles says, holding his dual blades in front of himself, “but instead leaves the marks behind. Harmless, but only at first.” He crosses the swords, staring at Emma from between them. “Every mark I leave behind with Cerebro increases my power over yours. For every perfect X I make, the more under my control you become. Look at your reiatsu.”

Emma stares at Charles wordlessly, so Erik looks as well. Emma’s white reiatsu is tinged blue.

“Three X’s and a quarter of your reiatsu is mine to control,” Charles says, voice cold and hard. “Six X’s and half is mine. Nine X’s and three-quarters of your strength belongs to me and at twelve…” Slowly he lowers his blades, pointing them straight at her. “Twelve X’s and _you_ are mine.”

Erik feels the smirk spread across his face at Emma’s expression, but he can’t watch her for long, his gaze drawn back to Charles. His anger makes him beautiful but now he is incendiary, reiatsu fanned out around him in a wild tangle, not uniform or controlled at all, and yet he is perfect, every line of him filled with strength and Erik _wants_ , the hunger simmering beneath his skin.

He doesn’t know where he found the willpower to stay away all these years. Now that they are reunited, and once he explains to Charles why he willingly kept away...

Never again.

“You’re not the only one with a Zanpakutō,” Emma snarls, lifting her scythe up high again and Erik tenses, “and now it’s my turn. _Mira_.”

“Stop her,” Erik says, jolted into action and not even waiting to hear Charles’ answer before he takes off towards Emma, running as fast as he can, “don’t let her—”

Emma slams her scythe downwards, a wave of power howling out of the blade and surging forward like a tidal wave in all directions, forcing Erik to veer off course in order to avoid being destroyed. It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s already too late.

Emma smirks, more sneer than smile, reiatsu gathering up high above her like clouds before a snowstorm. “Crystallize, Reina.”

 

X

 

“Give up,” the Kenpachi says, though gently and without any heat, “you’ve lost, Raven.”

Raven sputters out a breath, flecks of red blood littering the pavement in front of her as she struggles for air. “No,” she growls, slowly picking herself up to glare at him, shaking hands gripping the hilt of her Zanpakutō slick with more blood, “I’m not done yet.”

“You can’t even cut me,” Armando says, motioning down at himself with one hand. Raven’s landed just as many blows on him as he has on her, but he doesn’t have a single scratch. “You aren’t strong enough. I am sorry, my friend. I will tell Hank about your bravery.”

“ _Hank_ is my friend,” Raven shouts, spitting out a mouthful of blood, “not you! And I’m not giving up—I _refuse_ to give up—until I get him back again.” She draws her lips back from bloody teeth in a gruesome smile. “And _you_ are in my way.”

She launches herself towards the Eleventh Division Captain, and either he doesn’t expect her to make it or is too surprised by her vehemence to react, because when Raven gathers every last particle of her reiatsu behind her sword, pouring everything into her blade, Armando’s shocked expression is branded into her mind as she impales him through the chest.

 

X

 

A maelstrom of power erupts upwards into the sky, a huge outpouring that makes every hair on the back of Charles’ neck stand on end at the crushing malevolence. Emma’s reiatsu has exponentially increased, every particle in the air shimmering and straining, distorted by Emma’s presence alone and pressing in on Charles’ ears and weighing down on his shoulders, the Hollow-Shinigami mix jarring and wrong against his senses and amplified by a thousand. He feels the two X’s he’s left on her shatter and disappear, erasing what little grip he was beginning to form on her as her reiatsu overpowers his own.

He barely registers Erik’s reiatsu when the other Espada withdraws back to his side again, so that they stand together as a united front as slowly the eruption of power tapers off, settling into something that’s more controlled but no less potent. Erik is still covered with Cerebro’s blue marks, and Charles knows later he’ll probably regret attacking Erik too, but he’s still so _angry_ with him that he can’t bring himself to care now.

His wounded shoulder throbs and his own reiatsu fluctuates wildly, facilitating up and down with the release of his Zanpakutō. At least Cerebro is quiet, silently and obliging in Charles’ hands, but then again the sword has never been much of a talker—solemn like an obelisk. Charles sends Cerebro silent thanks anyway, because at least the Zanpakutō isn’t shunning him after two hundred long years of remaining sealed.

Maybe it’s just as annoyed with Erik as he is.

“ _Resurrección_ ,” Erik says grimly as the sand cloud Emma kicked up slowly clears around her, “an Arrancar’s version of Bankai.”

Emma’s form has changed. Charles would think she were totally nude if it weren’t for the fact that she no longer has skin—her body is composed entirely of crystal, diamond-white with hundreds of facets gleaming in the moonlight. Even her Hollow mask fragment, a long, skeletal jawline along her left cheek, has mineralized.

The part of her mask fragment that covered her left eye is gone, and instead of an eye it reveals a gaping Hollow hole.

“What do you think,” Emma calls, twirling her scythe almost lazily. The Zanpakutō has changed form too, and now instead of a single, curved blade on one end, it has two—one on either end of the long, white hilt, jagged with long, lethal spikes. “ _Soy hermosa, ¿no?_ ”

“ _Envanecida_ ,” Erik spits.

Emma smiles widely. Even her actual teeth are diamond. “ _Mala suerte_ , Charles, that it’s me you’ve chosen to fight. Your Zanpakutō’s little trick won’t work on me anymore.”

Angel alights in the air on Erik’s other side, her face pale. “ _Jefe_ …”

“Angel,” Charles says quietly, though his voice still carries, “if Erik is the _Segunda_ Espada, what is Emma?”

Emma hears him and laughs, twirling around and coming to a stop with her back to them all and looking over her shoulder at them with a smirk.

Angel swallows and answers anyway, her voice hushed with fear. “ _La Primera_.”

In the small of Emma’s back, right along the ridge of her spine and just above the curves of her ass, is a large, bold tattoo of the number one.

“We can still take her out,” Erik murmurs, sliding closer, “but we’ll have to work together.”

“I don’t need your help,” Charles answers without looking at him, keeping his eyes on Emma. Cerebro is warm in his hands, the dual blades starting to resonate together, creating a feedback loop with his spirit pressure that slowly starts to expand.

“Charles,” Erik says sharply, because he no doubt recognizes the motions, “your reiatsu is too damaged—”

“No thanks to you, Erik,” Charles breathes, and his reiatsu falters for a second, jerking with the deep sorrow that has sunken down into him, filling up all the spaces in between his bones. Slowly he turns Cerebro’s daishō blades inwards toward himself, their sharp points brushing against the front of his black Shinigami kosode.

“ _Charles_ —”

“ _Mala suerte_ , Emma,” Charles says quietly, overriding Erik once more and drawing in a long, steady breath, “that _you_ chose to fight _me_.”

“Angel,” Erik says urgently, switching tracks because he’s accepted the inevitable, “ _corra_ —”

“Ban—” Charles breathes out, and in the same motion slides Cerebro’s blades in neatly between his ribs on either side of his body, “—kai.”

His reiatsu blows outwards like a dying star, and all the world falls away.


End file.
